LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap Copjiiglit No.A_3 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



OUR FIRST CONGRESS 



Our First Congress 



CONSISTING OF 



ADDRESSES ON RELIGIOUS AND THEOLOGICAL 

QUESTIONS, DURING THE FIRST CONGRESS 

OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, HELD 

IN ST. LOUIS, APRIL 25-27, 1899. 



^ 



EDITED BY 

J. H. GARRISON 
Editor Christian-Evangelist . 



St. Louis 

CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1900 



35386 






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72799 



Librsiry of Con<^ree& 

Two CopjES Received | 
JUL 26 1900 I 

Cop^ght entry 

SECOND COPY. 

Oeliverfld to 

ORDER DIVISION, 

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AUGL 



Copyrighted, 1900 
By Christian Publishing Company 



Contents. 



PAGE 

Preface 7 

Introductory Address 11 

I. The Vai,ue of Theology. Edward Scribner 

Ames 18 

II. The Cry, "Back to Christ." /. /. Haley 55 

III. The Cry, "Back to Christ" — A Review. 

/. B. Briney 85 

IV. The Cry, "Back to Christ" — A Review. 

W. J. Lhamon . .- . . . .100 
V. Crucial Points Concerning the Holy 

Spirit. R. T. Mathews .... Ill 
VI. Crucial Points Concerning the Holy 

Spirit — A Review. JV. E. Ellis . . 151 
VII. Crucial Points Concerning the Holy 
Spirit: A Supplementary Statement. 

E. N. Calvin 171 

VIII. Organization and its Adjustment to the 
Present Needs of the Church. Allan 
B. Philputt 189 

IX. Organization and its Adjustment to the 

Present Needs of the Church — A 
Review. W. E. Richardson . .211 

X. Enrichment of Public Worship Among 

the Disciples. Ida Withers Harrison . 223 
5 



preface* 

It was one of those charming summer days, 
characteristic of Macatawa Park, on Lake Mich- 
igan, at the close of our annual interdenomina- 
tional Assembly there, in August, 1898, that a 
dozen or more ministers of the Disciples of 
Christ, together with their wives and some other 
lay members who chanced to be spending their 
vacation there, chartered a small steamer and 
sailed up Black Lake to Point Superior for a 
picnic and a social visit. There on a timbered 
tongue of land jutting out into the lake, with 
either side washed by the rippling waves, and 
under the cool shade of the spreading oaks, we 
sat and talked of those things in which we all 
felt the deepest interest — the welfare of our own 
religious movement. 

Among other things presented for our consid- 
eration was the propriety of holding a Congress 
somewhere, at some time during the ensuing 
year. Such a convocation had been suggested 
many times before, but the move had never 
taken definite or decisive form. It was urged, 
at this little lake-side gathering, that there were 
a number of questions which needed to be care- 
fully and thoughtfully discussed among us, and 
that there was no time at our annual missionary 

7 



8 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

conventions for such discussion. Besides that, 
it was agreed that many of these questions would 
hardly be germane to a National Missionary Con- 
vention, even if there was time for their discus- 
sion. 

After the foregoing considerations, and others, 
had been duly weighed, it was voted unanimous- 
ly that it was expedient to hold such a Congress, 
and that this informal meeting, made up of rep- 
resentatives from several states, should issue a 
call for it. After a little further conference, St. 
Louis was selected as the place, the latter part 
of April as the time, and a committee was ap- 
pointed to arrange a program, issue the call and 
make all needful arrangements for the Congress. 
The committee did its duty to the best of its 
ability, and the First Congress of the Disciples 
of Christ was the result. 

The success of our First Congress exceeded 
the expectation of the most sanguine, even of 
those who called it. The attendance was large 
and representative. The papers were worthy of 
the men who prepared them and of the themes 
they treated. The discussions were earnest, 
pointed, and yet strictly parliamentary. The 
spirit of fraternity and freedom which prevailed 
was delightful, and to many it was a needed sign 
and assurance of our future progress and pros- 
perity. It was a splendid illustration of the 



PREFACE. 9 

raotto, "In essentials unity; in opinions liberty; 
in all tilings charity." 

It was the general feeling among those who 
;attended the Congress that the leading papers at 
least should be published in a permanent form, 
and it is in response to this request from many 
who heard them, and from many others who 
were not privileged to hear them, but who wish 
to keep in touch with the best thought of the 
brotherhood, that they are now presented to the 
public in this volume. It is hoped that the in- 
terest with which they were received in the 
Congress is prophetic of the wider interest they 
will awaken in the larger public to which they 
are now offered. Editor. 

St. Louis, Feb. 15th, 1900. 



Introductory Hddrcse** 

Brethren: — It is my pleasant duty, as Chair- 
man of the first session of this our first Congress 
and of the Committee on Program, as well as a 
resident of St. Louis, to call the Congress to 
order, and to extend to you a very cordial welcome 
on behalf of the churches and brethren in this 
city. It is a great pleasure to us all to have you 
with us as our guests during the sessions of this 
Congress, and we shall be delighted to do what 
we can to make your stay among us both pleasant 
and profitable. The freedom of Jthe city and of 
our homes is yours. 

I wish to congratulate you upon having real- 
ized an honor to which so many of our fellow- 
citizens have aspired in vain, viz., your election 
as members of Congress. Nor is the honor less 
because you are here to consider, not the polit- 
ical issues of the day, but the great questions 
which, in one form or another, belong to all 
time, because they have to do with the funda- 
mental and enduring needs of men in the higher 
ranges of their being and nature. As I look over 
this large audience present at the opening session, 
and representing so many States of the Union, I 

* By J. H. Garrison, who presided over the first session, 
and acted as general chairman of the Congress. 

11 



12 OUR FIE.ST CONGRESS. 

feel that the wisdom of the call for this Congress 
has already been fully vindicated. 

It is altogether fitting and proper, brethren, 
that we who have championed the cause of relig- 
ious liberty, and who owe our existence as a 
religious movement to a revolt against the 
tyranny of human creeds and ecclesiasticisms, 
should hold such a Congress as this for the free 
and unfettered discussion of those questions 
which are attracting the attention of the 
thoughtful men of our time. Holding fast to 
the deity and lordship of Jesus Christ, as the 
true object of faith, we can freely express our 
opinions and conclusions concerning these dis- 
puted questions without fear of that theological 
odium which has been so often used to suppress 
freedom of thought. Trained as we have been 
to do our own religious thinking and to give a 
reason for the faith that is in us, we may safely 
anticipate a season of delightful, intellectual and 
spiritual intercourse during the sessions of this 
Congress. 

We do not know of any city in our beloved 
country where the first Congress of the Disciples 
of Christ could have been more appropriately 
held than in this great metropolis on the bank of 
the Father of Waters, — the imperial city of St. 
Louis. Not to mention the fact that it is the 
home of the Christian-Evangelist, whose honor 
it was, many years ago, to suggest such a Con- 



INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 13 

gress, St. Louis is at the heart of this great 
Union of States, being near the center of popu- 
lation and also the center of the membership of 
the religious body represented in this Congress. 
In such a center, surrounded by such a member- 
ship, the Congress is sure to find a congenial 
atmosphere, both climatically and religiously 
speaking. In the name of our churches, our 
ministers, our citizens, we bid you a cordial wel- 
come to St. Louis and to our first Congress. In 
the year 1903, during the World's Fair, celebrat- 
ing the Centennial of the Louisiana Purchase, 
we hope to welcome to St. Louis another session 
of this Congress which shall be even more 
largely attended than this one. 

The first session of the Congress, over which I 
am called to preside, is to be devoted to "The 
History of Doctrine." The paper to be read is 
on *'The Value of Theology." I need scarcely 
remind you that the study of God — his being, 
character and will — is the very highest of all 
studies. Because the Disciples of Christ have 
never formulated their theology into a creed, 
but have always distinguished between theology 
and the faith, it may have seemed to our relig- 
ious neighbors, and even to some of our own 
number, that we attach little importance to the- 
ological study. This would be a wrong conclu- 
sion, however. From Alexander Campbell to 
the leaders among us to-day, clear thinking 



14 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

about God and his revelation to men has been 
held in high esteem, and we, no less than others, 
have had our theological system, though we have 
never sought to impose it on others as a test of 
fellowship or a condition of membership. In 
this lies the great distinction between the Dis- 
ciples of Christ and other religious bodies. We 
have never regarded our theology as finished and 
ready for being stereotyped. We believe there is 
vastly more to be learned yet about God and His 
way with men than has yet been found out, and 
we prefer to hold our minds in readiness to re- 
ceive the new light as fast as it breaks out of 
God's Word. 

It gives me great pleasure now to introduce to 
you Prof. Edward S. Ames of Butler College, 
Irvington, Ind., who will present a paper on 
'*The Value of Theology." 



I. 



The Value of Theology 



OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 



I. 

Cbe Value of ZhcoXosy. 

THERE is great diversity of opinion as to the 
value of theology. Very extreme state- 
ments, both for and against it, might be quoted 
from prominent religious leaders. Such a tabu- 
lated list of opposing views, however, would 
afford little real help to a man who seeks to 
give the subject earnest consideration. There is 
scarcely any topic upon which similar difference 
of opinion does not exist, but that does not 
hinder us from having opinions, — from being 
republicans or democrats, imperialists or anti- 
expansionists, realists or idealists. There is no 
resting place in any matters of human interest 
for the man who tries to settle important prob- 
lems by asking simply for a catalogue of the 
names on either side. The questions of conse- 
quence always challenge the thoughtful man to 
an investigation of the case upon its own merit. 
This is true of the question as to whether the- 
ology has any value. The fact that men differ 
2 17 



18 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

about it is no sufficient excuse for dismissing it 
without a hearing. Rather is it a reason why 
each man should think it over for himself with 
candor and carefulness. Every one who is 
awake to the movements in present-day thought 
is brought face to face in some way with the 
new interest in theology. Instead of being 
utterly banished from the world, it is seeking to 
clothe itself anew in the language of the times, 
and sooner or later will urge its claims for rec- 
ognition. Neither are the advocates of a new 
theology a feeble folk. They are among the 
scholars of all countries. To show what weight 
of learning and influence is cast on the side of 
this science to-day, one has but to make clear 
the meaning of the work of such men as Princi- 
pal Fairbairn and Canon Gore in England, 
Sabatier in France, Pfleiderer in Germany, 
George A. Gordon and Henry Van Dyke in 
America. It is noticeable that pastors and 
practical religious workers are giving promi- 
nence to these problems. There is a serious- 
ness, even an anxiety, betrayed in the writings 
which indicate that for them the situation seems 
to involve the very foundations of religion. 
The feeling is clearly expressed that the old 
statements are already exploded, and practically 
discarded. With Calvinism dead and many 
times buried, these who have survived it may 
well inquire whether theology itself has also 



THE VALUE OF THEOLOGY. 19 

perished or whether another mighty system is 
likely to arise. The whole Christian world can 
not but be vitally concerned with this alterna- 
tive. Under these circumstances the funda- 
mental question is, What is the value of the- 
ology? The question is not what is the value of 
this or that system, but what is the value of any 
system whatsoever? It is analogous to the in- 
quiry whether science in general, not this or that 
science, has any value. In other words, it is 
conceivable that a man should be dissatisfied 
with all the particular theories of physics with 
which he is acquainted, and yet be convinced 
that physical science is a possible and important 
field of knowledge. 

Theology may be defined as the science of God 
and of divine things. It attempts to think out 
clearly and to put into systematic form the 
knowledge which man possesses of the Divine 
Being and his relation to the world. It includes, 
therefore, such subjects as the relation of God to 
nature and to human life. The doctrines of sin 
and of the atonement, of miracles and revela- 
tion, of a future life and its rewards and pun- 
ishments, — these and related subjects constitute 
the material with which the science of theology 
deals. The special departments of theology 
need not be considered here except to point out 
the relation of Biblical and S3^stematic theology. 
Biblical theology investigates the Scriptures in 



20 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

order to set forth in an orderlj^ way the teaching 
of the different writers upon the various sub- 
jects considered, care being taken to interpret 
each writer in terms of his time and circum- 
stance. Sj'stematic theology, on the other hand, 
builds upon these results, and seeks to translate 
Biblical truth into the language and experience 
of the present age. Systematic theology in- 
cludes among its materials, therefore, not only 
the revelation of God in the Bible, but also that 
revelation which he makes of himself in nature 
and in the progressive development of history. 
The physical sciences, social institutions and 
various world religions, — all the forms and prod- 
ucts of human activity are made contributors to 
the final view, under the conviction that, in some 
way or other, every department of human life 
reveals the nature of God and of his wonderful 
ways. Systematic theology, therefore, sets for 
itself no less a task than that of bringing to bear 
the whole field of modern knowledge and experi- 
ence in the interpretation of the idea of God 
and his relation to humanity. 

It is important to note the relation in which 
theology stands to religion. They are neither 
identical nor entirely separate, but may be 
thought of as related in the same way that the- 
ory is related to practice or science to art. Sci- 
ence is the knowing and art is the doing, and in 
point of time, art is much older than science. 



THE VALUE OF THEOIvOGY. 21 

For example, ethics is the science of conduct, 
bat human conduct had been going on for cen- 
turies before a definite science of ethics arose. 
Like^Yise men did not have to wait until a sys- 
tem of logic was devised before they could 
think, and think correctly. As Locke says, it is 
a mistake of the scholastics to suppose that God 
made a two-legged animal and left it to Aristotle 
to make him rational. In the same way religion 
is as old at least as the historic age of man, 
while theology as a science is relatively a mod- 
ern affair. Religion is the active attitude in 
which the individual worships, propitiates or 
serves the deity. It is the communion of the 
individual with the universal Being. Theology, 
on the other hand, inquires into the existence, 
nature and attributes of the object of religious 
adoration, and into the methods of mediation 
and redemption. There is thus sought a trans- 
lation of the immediate experience into con- 
cepts, into scientific knowledge. The same rela- 
tion may be illustrated in terms of theory and 
practice. The theory is a statement in clear, 
logical form of the processes, laws and worth 
of the practice. 

Theology as a science or theory does not arise 
by accident, but is the natural and necessary 
product of man's intellectual activity. Man is 
by nature a thinking being. The image in which 
he is created is characterized by infinite wisdom 



22 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

and knowledge. The normal individual, what- 
ever the stage of his development, reflects more 
or less upon the meaning of life and its infinite 
source. The di:fference between the Hottentot and 
the sage of civilization is not that one theorizes 
and the other does not. The difference is in the 
extent and consistency of their theories. It is 
almost a commonplace now-a-days to say that it 
is not a question as to whether one shall have a 
philosophy of life or not, but the only question 
is whether or not one's philosophy is good or 
bad. The same applies equally to theology. 
The only thing of interest is as to the kind of 
theology, — is it a cheap, second-hand edition, 
picked up at random and perhaps unconsciously, 
from among the vagaries of men? Or is it a 
theology bought at first hand by careful study 
and thoroughly scientific investigation? Some 
one may reply to this that he is certain of his 
theology, for he gets it out of the Bible itself. 
It would be just as much in point and just as 
true for such an one to say that he knows the 
sky is blue because he just looks at it and sees 
that it is so. Of course the sky looks blue, but 
it is blue for a seeing eye, and if the eye is color 
blind, or if one wears colored glasses, then the 
sky may not be blue. In any case, the condition 
of the organ determines vision. The same is 
true in reading the Bible. It means more to one 
than another, and something different to all. The 



THE VALUE OF THEOLOGY. 23 

advocates of the most diverse views have ap- 
pealed to it for support. Royalist and demo- 
crat, slaveholder and abolitionist, prohibition- 
ist and moderate drinker, woman suffragist and 
anti-woman suffragist, Calvinist and Arminian — 
the opponents on every great moral and religious 
question have sincerely appealed to the one 
Book as their authority. And as we look back 
upon such controversies, the particular texts 
and passages are recalled which seemed to lend 
support to each contestant. It is possible for 
the historian to see these warring parties in the 
perspective of centuries, and to explain it all by 
the different points of view which they occu> 
pied, that is, by the different interpretations to 
which they were naturally led. This process of 
reflection goes on more or less clearly and con- 
sciously in every man and in every denomination 
to-day. Some wish to cut the knot by prohibit- 
ing men from thinking in matters of religion, 
but that is obviously impossible. The only 
alternative is to do more and better thinking, to 
frankly confess that we all have our theology in 
some form or other, and then proceed to develop 
and correct it to the best of our ability. Any 
view which tries to separate religion from theol- 
ogy, as though they were two distinct and abso- 
lutely separate things, presents the appearance 
of a man who tries to lift himself off the earth 
by his own boot-straps. That is, he proposes to 



24 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

abolish all theological theory by a specific theo- 
ry, which he tries to think is no theory at all. 
He unconsciously brings in at the back door 
what he has just dismissed by the front door. 
This phenomenon of a theology gotten up for 
the express purpose of discarding theology alto- 
gether may furnish much instruction, and even 
amusement, to the man who reads history with 
his eyes open. 

It is important to notice here that although 
there is some sort of theology wherever there is 
a spiritual religion, yet the two are not identical. 
The intellectual system of doctrines is only a 
statement of the meaning of the religion, and it 
is not the religion itself. The value of such a 
system of doctrines is to be understood in terms 
of the relation of science and art. The science 
draws out in definite form the principles upon 
which the art proceeds. Theology seeks to ex- 
plain the central facts of religion, and to em- 
phasize their relative importance. Its value 
may be summarized by saying that it helps 
religion to understand itself, to distinguish the 
essentials from the incidentals, to free historical 
religion from its excrescences. For instance, 
religion was at one time apparently in danger 
from the scientific theory that the earth is not 
flat but spherical, and that this planet is not the 
center of the solar system. 

Many people to-day seem to be very anxious 



THE VALUE OF THEOLOGY. 25 

for their religion, when science tells us that 
whales' throats are not large enough to admit 
Jonah, or that it is not likely that men ever 
lived to be hundreds of years of age, or that the 
human race itself, like all other forms of life on 
the globe, has come into existence through the 
process of evolution. We all have a profound 
conviction that none of these things can really 
endanger permanently the foundations of relig- 
ion, but we also have a natural and justifiable 
desire to understand how the well-attested 
results of science are to be fitted into a view of 
the world which will also give due recognition 
to the facts of the Christian religion. Even 
more than this is demanded by the religious con- 
sciousness. It is demanded that the new views 
of nature which science brings us, shall, when 
they are established, reinforce and deepen our 
spiritual lives, and make it possible, in the light 
of all the facts, to say openly and with convic- 
tion, like the psalmist of old, but with even 
greater significance, "The heavens declare the 
glory of God, and the firmament showeth his 
handiwork." Any less thorough-going attitude 
thau this weakens and narrows the religious 
nature. Men cannot long be whole-souled and 
enthusiastic about a religion which trembles 
every time it looks into the eye of an anthropoid 
ape, or which feels compelled to assert that 
religion is only a matter of feeling, and hence 



26 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

has no interest in the new heavens and the new 
earth which science has discovered in this cen- 
tury. Nor are such problems entirely peculiar 
to the present time. Every age in the Christian 
era has had its Newtons and its Galileos. In 
fact we claim it is the glory of Christianity that 
it cultivates such fine types of men. Every age 
has accordingly been compelled to some degree 
to restate its theology, and thus to enable the 
religious spirit of man to feel itself at home 
in the midst of a changing and growing world. 
In general, then, it may be said that the value of 
theology consists in the progressive restatement 
of the nature of God and his relation to the 
world, in terms not only of a better knowledge 
of the Bible, but also in terms of a better un- 
derstanding of physical nature and the course of 
human history. 

This belief in the necessity and importance of 
theology is not entirely new in the history of the 
Disciples of Christ. It is commonly understood 
that the Disciples have given little attention to 
theology, and it is sometimes claimed that they 
have none. Some might even contend that their 
distinctive characteristic is that they discard 
speculation altogether, and simply take the 
Scriptures, especially the New Testament, as 
their statement of religious truth. Nothing but 
a thorough history of doctrine among the Dis- 
ciples can adequately determine these matters. 



THE VALUK OF THEOLOGY. 27 

but even a superficial view reveals many in- 
teresting things in connection with the topic 
under discussion. It is true that the leaders of 
thought have violently opposed much of the 
theology current in popular thought. Particular 
doctrines were denounced on every possible 
occasion. Human speculations were apparently 
held in contempt, but yet there is danger of a 
misunderstanding concerning these things. Is it 
not true that their denunciations were hurled at 
theological systems, not in themselves, but as 
bonds of fellowship? They were contending for 
individual liberty in the interpretation of the 
Bible, and hence were thoroughly incensed at 
the practice then common of imposing creeds 
upon individuals by church authority as terms 
of salvation. Not creeds as such, but creeds as 
bonds of union ; not theological systems in them- 
selves, but as conditions of church membership, 
were the objects of attack. Theology, in their 
judgment, was a matter of mere opinion, and 
hence belonged to the individual. So long as it 
was held as one's private view, and not made a 
condition of fellowship or an occasion of strife, 
there was no objection. In fact, Alexander 
Campbell boasted that the ground upon which 
he stood was so catholic that men of all per- 
suasions and of all denominations and prejudice, 
were united with him in one community, upon 
the simple confession of faith in Christ. Among 



28 OUR FIRST CONGRKSS. 

them he says are found those who had been 
Eomanists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Meth- 
odists, Baptists, Restorationists, Quakers, Ari- 
ans. Unitarians, et cetera. ''And these per- 
sons," he continues, "of so many and so contra- 
dictory opinions, meet weekly around the Lord's 
table." 

Mr. Campbell had his own doctrinal convic- 
tions, which he did not hesitate to set forth at 
length in his publications, and he by no means 
restricted himself to the phraseology of the 
Bible in doing so. Thus he discussed freely the 
doctrines of inspiration, in connection with 
which he held that God taught man directly, vive 
voce, how to talk, and that the Holy Spirit gave 
the writers of the Scriptures the very words 
as well as the ideas. He held the view that the 
only notion men ever had of God was first re- 
vealed through the Hebrew Scriptures, and that 
all the ideas of the Deity found among other 
peoples were more or less true reproductions of 
that given to the chosen race. In like man- 
ner his views of the operation of the Holy Spirit 
in conversion, of the nature of the Godhead and 
the relation of the three persons in the Trinity, 
of a future life, of the ordinances, church organ- 
ization, — all of the usual problems of religion 
are freely considered. His theology is easily 
recognized as modified Calvinism, and he him- 
self understood it to be such, although he pre- 



THE VAIvUE OF THEOLOGY. 29 

ferred not to have it labeled. It was the name 
rather than the substance of Calvinism which he 
he rejected. At one time he declared his con- 
victions in the customary form of the formula 
of the confessions of faith. Among these arti- 
cles are the following: "1 believe in one God as 
manifested in the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Spirit, who are therefore one in power, nature 
and volition. I believe that every human being 
participates in all the consequences of the fall 
of Adam, and is born into the world frail and 
depraved in all his moral powers and capacities. 
So that without faith in Christ it is impossible 
for him, while in that state, to please God. I 
believe in the right and duty of exercising our 
own judgment in the interpretation of the Holy 
Scriptures." It was only when such statements 
were misused that he objected to them. Mr. 
Campbell indicates in many passages that he 
favors the freest theological speculation so long 
as it is held as a merely individual matter. His 
attitude is well expressed in these words: "Let 
men think as the}^ like on any matters of human 
opinion and upon doctrines of religion, provided 
only they hold the Head Christ and keep his 
commandments." (Mem. 2-519). That he him- 
self was fond of such speculations is evident to 
even the casual reader. In a lecture to one of 
his classes in Bethany College upon the subject 
of theology, he said, "Theology, in its proper 



30 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

amplitude and significance, is the most ineffably 
sublime of all the sciences of earth or heaven. 
It presents to us Grod in everything and every 
thing in God." 

The same general standpoint is maintained by 
Isaac Errett. In his tract entitled "Our Posi- 
tion," he presents the particulars in which we 
agree with, and those in which we differ from our 
religious neighbors. This is nothing more nor 
less than a popular summary of the theology 
which is characteristic of the brotherhood. It 
is intended as a concise presentation of the main 
doctrines generally held among the Disciples. 
But it is not a creed in the sense of an authori- 
tative document, since it ne^^r received any offi- 
cial indorsement. In fact there was no official 
body who could sanction it in a way to make it 
correspond in that respect to the creeds of other 
denominations. Yet the real significance of this 
famous tract is that it is a statement of the 
accepted theology. It defines our position, pre- 
sents our plea, and throughout uses synonyms 
for the usual phraseology of such publications. 
It is only a very superficial view which cannot 
discover that in reality it is our theological posi- 
tion, our doctrinal plea, and our specific theol- 
ogy which is here set forth. If one examines the 
teaching in detail, he finds that it is practically a 
restatement of the theology current among evan- 
gelical churches at the time, with such modifica- 



THE VALUE OF THEOIvOGY. 31 

tions as are necessary to show the particular 
features upon which the Disciples of Christ 
place distinctive emphasis, or hold unique doc- 
trines. 

One reason why the Disciples have been able 
to appear less theological than some other de- 
nominations is because they have accepted, for 
the most part, views which are common to all 
evangelical Christians. Theological controversy, 
on this account, has had a narrow range and has 
been occupied with questions such as the ordi- 
nances, which could be treated mainly from the 
linguistic or historical sides. The fundamental 
theological problem concerning the nature of 
God has never been brought into serious, or at 
least original, consideration. It was quietly ac- 
cepted under the traditional forms. There were 
only relatively minor principles which the broth- 
erhood ever had to consider in anything like 
an independent manner. These concerned the 
interpretation of the authority of the Scriptures 
with reference to polity and liturgies. The con- 
troversy over the missionary societies and instru- 
mental music was sufficiently intense to mark a 
distinct epoch in the historical development, and 
to effect, to all intents and purposes, a division 
of the forces into progressives and conservatives, 
according as the spirit or the letter of the Bible 
was made the rule of conduct. At the present 
time the division of sentiment upon this line is 



32 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

only felt as a sort of inertia in the whole body, 
while the conservative party no longer is able to 
sustain any vital or life-like contention. 

From these few references to the history 
of the Disciples it is evident that the value of 
theology appears in a practical and half-con- 
scious way. But in reality every doctrinal state- 
ment, such as Errett's "Our Position," and 
every debate of Alexander Campbell's, is a con- 
fession that there is great importance in a clearly 
formulated and well defended statement in 
propositional form of what are considered tne 
essential doctrines concerning the fundamental 
facts of the Christian religion. 

The form in which theology presents itself in 
the history of the Disciples brings out with strik- 
ing clearness the relation in which the reflective 
activity, particular doctrines, and creeds stand to 
each other. The speculative process arises out 
of the inquiring, questioning nature w4iich be- 
longs to all men. It shows itself in the develop- 
ment of all orderly, systematic knowledge of sci- 
ence and philosophy. It is inevitable that this 
same reflective tendency should show itself in 
reference to the facts and experiences of relig- 
ion. The products or results of this speculative 
process are presented in the form of the particu- 
lar doctrines of individual thinkers. Accord- 
ingly the history of doctrine presents the various 
typical systems of theology which different men 



THE VALUE OF THEOLOGY. 33 

have worked out. These systems are known 
usually by the names of their authors, as those of 
Augustine, Pelagius, Luther, Calvin or Armin- 
ius. The creed arises when a council or synod 
or other representative body accepts a particular 
set of doctrines as an expression of divine truth. 
The individual doctrines thus officially pro- 
claimed are called dogmas. With reference to 
the speculative process it has been shown that 
it is universal and necessary to all thinking men, 
but Christendom is divided into two parties over 
the further question as to whether individual 
men shall be left free to think out conclusions 
for themselves or whether they shall be obliged 
to reach certain definite conclusions in their 
thought. Protestantism holds to the former, 
Catholicism to the latter. The fundamental 
principle of Protestantism is that the individual 
should be absolutely free in his reflection upon 
religion and all other subjects. The only condi- 
tions which anyone expects him to fulfill are 
those of all scientific inquiry, namely, adherence 
to fact and to the laws of thought. But he is 
not even held to these by any ecclesiastical 
authority. Catholicism tends to require that all 
speculation shall issue in support of the dogmas 
of the church. The Roman Catholic Church 
practically calls upon the individual to relin- 
quish his particular views in deference to the 

conclusions of councils and popes. And this is 
3 



34 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

not an inconsistent position from the standpoint 
of the Eoman Church. The church claims that 
the voice of council and of pope is the voice 
of God, and that therefore the decrees thus 
announced have divine authority. 

The Protestant, on the other hand, denies 
theoretically that the Church has any right to 
identify its dogmas with the will of God, and 
exalts, in opposition to the ecclesiasticism, the 
Word of God as contained in the Bible, and in- 
terpreted by the individual. The fact that 
Protestantism has not been true to its lofty prin- 
ciple, and has often fallen into the Catholic 
error of exalting the authority of an ecclesias- 
tical body into the place of the Bible, does not 
lessen the significance of the principle itself. 
It is true that since the days of Luther, Protest- 
ants have often lost sight of their guiding star, 
but they have steadily moved toward the goal of 
"the Bible and the Bible alone," in the words of 
Chillingworth, as their only rule of faith and 
conduct. As to what the specific teaching of 
the Scriptures is, they allow evrey man to judge 
for himself. From this standpoint, therefore, 
the Protestant churches cannot consistently pro- 
mulgate creeds in the sense of completed and 
perfect systems of divine truth. They can at 
most endorse certain doctrines as setting forth 
the most acceptable interpretation of the relig- 
ious experience thus far obtained. But the very 



THE VALUE OE THEOLOGY. 35 

genius of Protestaatism favors a continual de- 
velopment of theology in order to gain a more 
and more adequate statement of religion in 
terms of the thought of each age. It favors the 
constant exercise of thought, of inquiry, of 
further elaboration of the content of the Chris- 
tian faith. It recognizes the transient character 
of all specific doctrines as theoretical state- 
ments, and constantly revises them in the light 
of new knowledge and experience. For the 
true spirit of Protestantism, truth lies open like 
the spreading lines of an angle. Religious faith 
here presents itself as an inexhaustible field, 
which the mind of man may progressively inter- 
pret, ever with new meaning, but never with 
perfect completeness. This transformation and 
enrichment of theology may be seen as a vital 
process both in its historic development and in 
contemporaneous thought. The doctrine of the 
atonement furnishes a typical example. This 
fundamental fact of the Christian religion is set 
forth from time to time in terms of various 
social conditions. Anselm reflected upon the 
atonement in terms of commercial relations. 
Man owed a debt greater than he could pay, and 
Christ pays it for him. Anselm proceeds from 
the standpoint of the laws of his time governing 
indebtedness, and is also influenced by the pre- 
valent ideas of chivalry. Abelard advances the 
moral theory of the atonement, which, in con- 



36 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

trast to the commercial view, makes the atone- 
ment such a manifestation of Christ's infinite 
love as breaks down the heart of the sinner and 
leads him to repentance. Judicial theories are 
presented in the covenant theology and also in 
the system of Grrotius, who was himself an emi- 
nent jurist. It is evident that all these views 
get their distinctive form chiefly from the social 
or political conditions of the time, or from the 
molds of thought into which their authors have 
been cast by their daily occupations. While no 
one view is an adequate statement of the great 
fact of Christ's death, yet each contributes some 
helpful factor to a many-sided and therefore 
truer doctrine of the atonement. 

All the other facts of religion undergo chang- 
ing explanations as time goes on. Sabatier, in a 
most suggestive little volume on the "Vitality of 
Dogma," likens the growth in doctrines to the 
growth of language. Words have a life of their 
own quite analogous to that of animals or plants. 
Each dialect, so long as it is spoken, is in 
motion, and it may be said that the intensity of 
its life is identical with this power of evolu- 
tion. "It is the same with the dogmas of a 
church, which form likewise a living organism, 
and which are, if rightly considered, only a kind 
of theological language by which the consciuos- 
ness of the Church or the piety of its members 
reveals itself outwardly, and grows stronger by 



THE VALUE OF THEOLOGY. 37 

this self-revelation. . . . It is only in the 
compilations which go by the name of books of 
Symbolics, that we find dogmas in their state of 
fixity, in a form of irreproachable and frozen 
orthodoxy. But watch them in the daily prac- 
tice of individual or public piety; listen to the 
prayers which rise from hearts moved by feeling; 
note what each believer finds in them or adds on 
his own account to these venerable and custom- 
ary expressions of religion; catch them in their 
flight, so to say, in popular sermons, in the 
teaching of the young in daily practical appli- 
cations, and you will be quite surprised to find 
these apparently hieratical formulas so easy, so 
undulating, so rich in meaning and in shade, so 
susceptible of so many interpretations." 

If this freedom of thought, which is the pride 
of Protestantism, is justifiable, then theology is 
at the same time established as the natural and 
necessary result. Theology simply means the 
results of thorough-going and systematic think- 
ing upon divine things. It is distinguished from 
the every-day thought of the plain man in 
degree, not in kind. Like all scientific thinking, 
it seeks to take account of the whole range of 
facts, and to attain consistency and clearness in 
the midst of a great wealth of details. Its value 
as an interpreter of religion will depend alto- 
gether upon the success with which it explains 
the facts of religion in relation to the facts of 



38 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

the whole life. In the very nature of the case, 
then, there will be no ultimate and absolute unity 
of theological doctrines among Protestants. 
Any system will have wide acceptance and 
endure to the extent to which it commends 
itself to the thought and religious spirit of indi- 
vidual men. Different systems will continue to 
exist side by side, commending themselves to the 
differing culture and experience of different 
classes. It is essentially the spirit of Catholi- 
cism, as already stated, to form a sect upon 
every particular system of theology. And just 
so far as Protestantism has expressed itself in 
mutually exclusive denominations, just to that 
extent it has been untrue to its historic princi- 
ple and has returned to the standpoint of Cath- 
olicism. It is possible, and indeed, let it be 
hoped, the prevailing conviction is, that the dif- 
ferent evangelical bodies of Christians so far as 
they are really separate at all, are so only in the 
sense of different schools of theology, each 
attracting to itself those whose convictions 
present religion to them under that particular 
doctrinal form. In fact, any individual who be- 
longs to a given denomination for any other 
than doctrinal reasons would evidently just as 
well belong to any other denomination, if. social 
and practical consideration permitted. 

Perhaps it may be asked. What, then, is to be 
understood by union? Well, it may be answered, 



THE VALUE OF THEOLOGY. 39 

certainly not a doctrinal union. That, as every 
thinking man knows, is an impossible and unde- 
sirable thing. It never can be effected, and if 
by any chance it should come about, it would be 
followed in time by another Lutheran reforma- 
tion. We are not at all in doubt as to what kind 
of a union Christ designed for his followers. 
He himself describes it as a spiritual union, 
such as exists between himself and the Father. 
For human beings, at least, this may be realized 
as a practical fellowship of service, a co-opera- 
tion in the bonds of love for the relief of the 
world's suffering and the banishment of sin. 
It is repeated on every hand these days that 
Jesus did not ask men to accept a proposition, 
but to accept himself. So far as we know, he 
always asked men to follow him, and left the dis- 
cussion of theology to moments when they were 
shut up in ships upon the sea, or had time to 
take a little excursion into the mountains. Men 
in all ages need comfort and encouragement 
and inspiration to higher ideals, and the vast 
majority, if not all, get these things through 
personal relations. It is perfectly true that 
theology is not something to be preached in it- 
self, but it is also true that if preachers were 
better theologians than they are, there would be 
less doctrinal preaching than there is to-day. 
When you say that Christ, and not theology, 
should be preached, you state a profound truth; 



40 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

but that statement is a doctrinal statement, and 
is not itself the message to be preached to the 
sinning world, however much it needs to be said 
to preachers themselves. In other words, min- 
isters have yet to learn that theolog}^ stands to 
the work of preaching the gospel very much in 
the way that the science of painting stands to 
the actual work of making a picture. The high- 
est works of art are the embodiment of the 
clearest and truest principles of drawing, color- 
ing and expression, and they must be known to 
the artist, but he does not trouble the soul hun- 
gry for beauty with all the details of his study. 
In like manner the world wants the best and 
most life-like picture of Christ, but it is only 
secondarily interested, if at all, in the way in 
which that picture is presented to it. 

Nowhere has theology been denounced more 
persistently than in the pulpits of the Disciples 
of Christ, and, strange as it may seem, nowhere 
has theology been heard more. The result has 
been, as our religious neighbors have often dis- 
covered, that we have been conspicuous for argu- 
ment and a doctrinal plea more than for the 
practical deeds of the Christian life. In fact, it 
can be easily shown that the union which exists 
among the Disciples to-day is more a theological 
than a religious union. It matters little in what 
part of the country or in what social class a Dis- 
ciple is found, he holds almost invariably to a 



THE VALUE OF THEOLOGY. 41 

certain formula of religion, especially if his 
views are likely to be overheard by the brethren. 
He often has more fear of being judged by the 
irresponsible and intangible court of public 
opinion, than men of other days have had of 
being brought to trial before tribunals, of which, 
whatever else might be said, it was yet true that 
they preferred definite charges and gave some 
explanation of their sentence. After seventy- 
five years of pleading for Christian union, is it 
not true that there is a great lack of a spiritual, 
personal union, such as was no doubt prayed for 
by our Lord? If union is to commend itself to 
this practical age, should it not bind the local 
congregation in a fellowship filled with forbear- 
ance and helpfulness? Could it not reasonably 
be expected that neighboring churches would 
co-operate for evangelistic and missionary work? 
Above all, would there not be such a common 
sentiment of service and mutual consecration as 
would express itself in national and world-wide 
movements throughout the brotherhood in be- 
half of Christian progress? Hundreds of 
churches are torn by internal strife. In these 
churches everybody is sound in the plea, but 
many are conspicuously lacking in that charity 
which suffereth long and is kind, which beareth, 
believeth, hopeth, endureth all things. Three 
thousand churches, in good standing and full 
fellowship, never have lifted a finger in union 



42 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

with their brethren to do the world-wide work 
of the Master whose disciples they claim to be. 
Different excuses and explanations are offered 
for this lamentable condition, but I submit that 
it is chiefly due to the fact that these churches 
have been taught a doctrinal rather than a prac- 
tical, personal union. History shows that relig- 
ious bodies, like individuals, exhibit definite 
characteristics, and it also shows that, like 
human beings, they bear the marks of their early 
training through life. The Presbyterian is intel- 
lectual, the Methodist zealous, the Quaker 
peaceable, the Episcopalian elegant, and these 
distinctive features were prominent in the 
founders of their respective denominations. If 
one thing marks the typical Disciple more than 
any thing else, perhaps it is independence. This 
independence has shown itself in protest against 
creeds, in the unsocial life which the Disciples 
have led as regards other denominations, and in 
the intense individualism which has governed 
congregations, to the great detriment of all 
co-operative undertakings. Union among the 
Disciples of Christ becomes actual and efficient 
just to the degree to which a vital, personal fel- 
lowship supplants a mechanical theological 
scheme of salvation as the basis of church life. 
Jesus' plan was to win men to himself first and 
teach them doctrines afterward. Is not that 
suggestive for the church to-day? Instead of 



THE VALUE OF THEOLOGY. 43 

presenting to a weary and fainting world a 
proposition about Christ, it would be far more 
appropriate to tell the simple story of his love, 
paint a picture of his face, or, above all, repro- 
duce him in a concrete life of service. 

Strange as it may appear, it is theology which 
is helping the church to understand this. Such 
a statement will doubtless be unintelligible to 
one who identifies all theology with Calvinism, 
but an acquaintance with the new spirit which is 
already transforming the old doctrines will beget 
confidence. The old theology has been unable 
to withstand the flood of new life which has 
poured into modern religious thought. The 
instrument of this quickening spirit has been a 
critical inquiry into the sources and history of 
the Christian religion. Exegesis, Biblical study, 
and the history of doctrine have been pursued in 
our day with an unparalleled thoroughness and 
fruitfulness. The most conspicuous result has 
been to show the vast discrepancy which has ex- 
isted between the Biblical teaching and the old 
theology with reference to the person of Christ. 
That theology had lost sight of the human side of 
Christ's nature. It exalted the divine nature of 
Christ so that it seemed impossible any longer to 
hold to his earthly existence as a genuine reality. 
After interpreting the life of Christ through 
abstract metaphysical ideas of God, the theologi- 
ans felt the necessity of harmonizing with their 



44 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

views the teaching of the Scriptures concerning 
the earthly life of Jesus. Two methods were 
adopted for this purpose. One abandoned the 
belief in the real and natural humanity of Christ 
and held it to be only an empty semblance of 
human life, a sort of apparition. The other 
held that the two natures existed in the person 
of Christ side by side, totally distinct, but in 
some occult way gave the appearance of a single 
life. Even modern theologians defend such 
hypotheses. One represents the body of Christ 
as miraculous in its freedom from sickness, its 
power over animals, its exemption from the 
necessity of death. Dr. Shedd, in his Dogmatic 
Theology, says: "The divine nature had its own 
form of experience, like the mind in an ordinary 
human person, and the human nature had its 
own form of experience, like the body in a com- 
mon man." Dr. Henry Van Dyke, in comment- 
ing upon these views, shows their total inade- 
quacy. He says: "If we accept this picture 
of Christ, the manhood of Jesus fades, retreats, 
grows dim and shadowy . . . The Son of 
God behind that veil is beyond our reach. The 
Son of man, whom human eyes beheld and 
human hands touched, is not the real, living veri- 
table Savior, but only the form, the garment, of 
an inscrutable life. And if in our dire confu- 
sion, our reasoning faith still succeeds in hold- 
ing fast to the Eternal Logos, our confiding faith 



THE VALUE OF THEOLOGY. 45 

is maimed and robbed by the loss of that true, 
near, personal, loving, sympathizing Jesus, who 
was born of a woman, suffered under Pontius 
Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He is 
gone from us as certainly as if the Pharisees had 
spoken the truth when they said that his dis- 
ciples came by night and stole him away." 

For centuries, here and there, pious hearts 
have revolted against that lifeless theology and, 
like Erasmus, longed to see "the Christ pure 
and simple implanted within the minds of men." 
Throughout the Reformation period the demand 
for the simple life of the Son of man grew in 
strength, and eagerly seized upon the discoveries 
of modern scholarship. Biblical study finally 
succeeded in a reverent and eager quest for the 
materials from which to reconstruct a picture of 
the real Christ, in his human as well as in his 
divine life. The Christ of the New Testament, 
as thus understood, comes close even to the 
humblest side of man's daily life. He labors for 
bread, he grows by the discipline of adversity. 
He weeps, is tempted, is lonely and disap- 
pointed. He confesses ignorance, asks for in- 
formation. He gives no hint that he is leading 
a double life. In like manner, throughout the 
Epistles he is the self-humiliated, tried and 
tested, emptied and beggared, though at last 
glorified. Son of God. It is this rediscovery of 
Jesus in his complete humanity that explains 



46 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

the fresh life of religion at the present time. 
To sa}' that modern thought is Christo-centric is 
not a sufficient description of this renovating 
principle. In a sense, all systems of theology 
have exalted the Person and Work of Christ. 
What is demanded to-day is the exaltation of the 
Divine Christ, who is also thoroughly human, 
who appears as a man among men, and who 
attracts disciples by the surpassing genius and 
perfect development of the same nature which 
they experience in themselves. 

The task which a new theology finds already 
suggested is to take this central fact of the con- 
crete life of Christ, and make it the determin- 
ing principle in the restatement of the whole 
field of systematic theology. As yet the work- 
men have been gathering the material for the 
great achievement of a constructive epoch. 
Heretofore, painstaking scholarship has been 
required. Now, the thinker, the systematizer is 
needed. The period of criticism is now seen to. 
have rendered an incalculable service in over- 
hauling the foundations and in testing every 
element which may be employed in the total 
structure. And what has been done in Biblical 
research has been paralleled in other lines which 
are tributary to the vast edifice which is designed 
by the constructive spirit of the new age into 
which the religious world of our day is rapidly 
passing. Science and literature, history and art, 



THE VALUE OF THEOLOGY. 47 

will furnish substantial pillars and appropriate 
ornaments for this temple of truth. At the 
present time these rich fields seem to lie quite 
kpart from each other and from the problems of 
theology in particular. And this fact of their 
separation is perplexing to the religious life. It 
is no longer possible for thoughtful men to 
return to the ''double truth" of the early mod- 
ern period. They cannot be satisfied with a 
religion which shuts itself up from the labora- 
tory of the physicist, or from the discoveries of 
the geologist. In some way these various de- 
partments of established truth must be reduced 
to a unitary universe in which the Holy Spirit of 
religion may feel itself at home. Otherwise 
there will continue to be enormous waste and 
distressing friction through the apparent antag- 
onism of different, but equally indispensable, 
sides of human life. This demand for a the- 
ology which will effect a synthesis of all the 
diverse elements without sacrificing any truth is 
a marked characteristic of current religious lit- 
erature. The following is a representative utter- 
ance from a leading theologian: *'We feel sure 
that theology, in time, must and will vindicate 
its claim to be considered as an essential factor 
in the intellectual life of man, by adapting itself 
to the changed conditions, and producing even 
mightier works by the new methods than those 
which it produced by the old." But along with 



48 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

this confidence in the final achievement of the- 
ology there is a profound sense of the greatness 
of the undertaking. Dr. Gordon, in his admira- 
ble book, "The Christ of To-day," puts it thus: 
**What manner of man must he be who is to 
give epoch-making expression to the new con- 
sciousness of Christ, it is not difficult to imag- 
ine. He must know the method of physical 
science, and be in sympathy with its great gener- 
alizations ; he must be at home in the kingdom 
of thought, familiar with the noble and fruitful 
ideas in philosophy, a companion of the imperial 
thinkers of the race; he must have at his 
tongue's end the salient facts of Christian his- 
tory, and the fundamental conceptions and dis- 
tinctions of historic theology; he must be a 
master of the new Biblical learning, widely and 
deeply versed in the classical literatures of the 
world, and able to work in the consciousness of 
the true interpretation of the religions of the 
world; and in addition to all this he must have 
original power." 

The value of such a comprehensive, construc- 
tive theology is assured from two of its main 
characteristics. In the first place, it proposes 
to use the mind of Christ as revealed in the New 
Testament and in the life of the Church, as the 
medium through which to interpret the idea of 
God and his relation to the world. In this way 
a safeguard is provided against abstract and 



THE VALUE OF THEOIvOGY. 49 

lifeless speculations. A standard and a method 
are thus provided which promise to save theol- 
ogy from the besetting sin of a one-sided intel- 
lectualism, and to give proper place to the feel- 
ings and the will. 

Secondly, such theology is less likely to 
obtrude itself into the domain of religion. By 
its constant emphasis upon the fact that Chris- 
tianity is the religion of personality, it is likely 
to avoid the frequent error of the past of allow- 
ing theology to forget its secondary position and 
to attempt to identify itself with the religion 
which it serves merely as an interpreter. Such 
a theology may be hailed as the ally and defender 
of the simple, ancient gospel of our Lord and 
his apostles. 

In conclusion, then, it may be said, theology 
is a natural and necessary product of the rea- 
soning powers of man, directed to the all- 
important problems concerning God and his 
relation to the world. It is consequently char- 
acterized, like all science and knowledge, by con- 
stant growth and development. Whenever this 
growth is arrested by any cause, so that a partic- 
ular theological system outlives the spirit of the 
age from which it arose, then it becomes a hin- 
drance and an obstacle to Christian progress. 
It is the distinctive insight of present day relig- 
ious thought to realize that theology is by its 

very nature progressive, and therefore that par- 
4 



50 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

ticular systems are relative to given periods and 
types of thought. But it is also true that hand 
in hand with this clear, historical knowledge of 
its development, the value of theology is newly 
appreciated. Heretofore it has been felt that if 
systems changed or were suspended, they were 
thereby shown to be false and worthless. Now 
it is being understood more and more that these 
systems are of surpassing value just because 
they speak the message of each age, and inter- 
pret the fundamental facts of Christianity, in 
ever new and richer forms according to the new 
ideas and spirit characteristic of the times. It 
is therefore noticeable that the value of theology 
for our own particular day and generation 
appears best in the special task which it sets for 
itself. This task has been outlined by a recent 
writer as follows: Theology is trying at the 
present time honestly to take account of the 
great convictions of our own age, and by 
means of them to make the great abiding truths 
of Christianity real to this generation. It there- 
fore seeks to be personal, and to insist upon a 
recognition of the whole man in all his faculties 
and powers, and in all his moral and spiritual 
relationships; it seeks to be Biblical, depending 
upon the historical revelation of Grod in the 
lives and work of the holy, inspired men of the 
past; it seeks to be more historical, striving to 
know more and more the ways of God in his 



THE VALUE OF THEOLOGY. 51 

providence over the nations of the earth; it 
seeks to be more scientific, searching the deep 
things of God in the forces of nature, in all 
their scientific variety and beauty ; it seeks to be 
social, remembering that the great command- 
ment, first above all others, because it includes 
them, is the commandment to love. But while 
modern theology seeks thus to be personal, 
biblical, historical, scientific and social, it seeks 
above all to be Christian, supremely Christian. 
He that has seen Christ has seen the Father. 
"Other foundation can no man lay than that 
which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." "And 
this is life eternal, that they should know thee, 
the only true God, and him whom thou didst 
send, even Jesus Christ." 

Edward Scribner Ames. 



Note. — The discussion which followed this paper was led 
by Dr. Albert Buxton, Chancellor of Add-Ran University, 
and C. C Rowlison, who presented no papers, and was partic- 
ipated in by a number of other volunteer speakers. There 
was very general unanimity in the positions of the paper.— 
Editor. 



II 



The Cry "Back to Christ." 



SECOND SESSION. 

The evening session of the Congress was devoted to the 
popular subject of education. President E. V. Zollars, of 
Hiram College, presided, and the address was by President J. 
H. Hardin, of Eureka College, on "College Endowment." 
This address has been published elsewhere. The discussion on 
this subject was led by President Clinton Lockhart, of Chris- 
tian University, and Prof. W. P. Aylsworth, of Cotner Uni- 
versity. The former emphasized the need of large endow- 
ments based on the demands of modern education; the latter 
pointed out the value of making the best use of such facilities 
as we have, while waiting for the realization of larger things. 
Several others took part in the discussion, calling attention 
to the fact that, whatever might be the case in other depart- 
ments of Christian work, we were certainly behind others, 
and far behind our ability, in the matter of college endow- 
ments. It was felt by the friends of higher education that 
this session was an exceedingly valuable one, in the informa- 
tion elicited and the enthusiasm generated by the address and 
the discussion. 

THIRD SESSION. 

The Third Session of the Congress was presided over by D. 
R. Dungan, LL. D. of St. Louis, and the general topic for 
consideration was "Biblical Study." The chairman made 
some introductory remarks pertinent to the topic under con- 
sideration, and introduced J. J. Haley of Cynthiana, Ky., 
who read the paper which follows, on "The Scope and Signi- 
ficance of the Cry, 'Back to Christ,' in Modern Religious 
Thought." The reviews of this paper were by J. B. Briney of 
Moberly, Mo., and W. J. Lhamon of AllegheDy City, Pa. The 
former spoke from notes which were afterwards vsrritten out 
for this volume. A very courteous discussion followed in 

which several participated. 

54 



Zhc Cry, ''Back to Christ:'' 

Its Scope and Significance in Modern Relig- 
ious Thought. 

THE strange mixture of religious and political 
interests that clustered about the "Sanctu- 
ary of Waters" at Csesarea Philippi, in the 
first century of the Christian era, may be seen 
in rich profusion upon the ancient coins of the 
town, which DeSanly has reproduced. On one 
coin we have the pipe of Pan, on a second coin 
Pan leaning on a tree and playing a flute, on a 
third the mouth of the sacred cavern, with a 
railing in front of it, and Pan within, again 
leaning against a tree, playing the flute; on 
others the laureled head of Apollo, a pillared 
temple, and inside the figure of Poppsea, Nero^s 
wife, whom he first kicked to death and after- 
wards raised to divine honors; various emperors 
with their title Divus and the town's own title — 
"Csesarea-August, Sacred, and with Rights of 
Sanctuary under Paneion." This shows an 
amalgamation of the two systems of religion, 
Greek and Roman, and that Pan was worshiped 
in the grotto, whose niches still bear his name, 

while divine honors were paid to Caesar in the 

55 



56 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

white temple that stood perhaps on the cliff 
above the site of the present Mohammedan shrine 
of St. George.* While both of these sanctuaries 
were open and men worshiped side by side the 
forces of nature and the incarnation of political 
power, Jesus came with his disciples to Csesarea 
Philippi, and here on heathen ground, as far away 
from Jerusalem as he could get, he drew from 
Peter the central and crucial proposition of his 
religion, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
living God." It is a matter, therefore, of arrest- 
ing significance, that a spot bearing the symbols 
of the apotheosis of the Gentile spirit in a tem- 
ple erected to Csesar by the flattery of a Herod 
should have been chosen to emphasize the claims 
of the Master upon the faith of mankind, and 
that the first clear confession of Christ's Divine 
Sonship should be made near the shrine where a 
fellowman was already worshiped as God. 
These were the two religions that were soon to 
enter into a deadly conflict for the possession of 
the world, and they had this element in com- 
mon, their representative symbol was the per- 
sonality of a man, and they responded to the 
longing of the age for the embodiment of 
authority, they worshiped a fellowman as God. 
Men bowed the knee to the bust of an emperor 



* Historical Geography of the Holy Land, by George 
Adam Smith. Page 476. 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 57 

because the reigning Caesar was the incarnation 
of political and social power, the dispenser of 
its largesses and its gifts to his flatterers and his 
favorites, reigning in glory to-day, but superseded 
by another to-morrow; but they adored the 
Christ for his own eternal sake. He was the 
Kingdom, the Religion, the Truth, and every 
thing lay forever to men in his character and in 
his love. The emperor compelled allegiance by 
his rank, his splendor; his power, but Christ 
turned from the symbol of all this to his cross 
and sacrifice, changing the center of the world's 
faith from incarnate selfishness and badness to 
incarnate goodness and love. 

Here, then, on the neutrality of pagan soil, 
far away from orthodox Jerusalem, where the 
ancient Semites worshiped the Baalim, the 
Greeks adored Pan, and the Romans bowed the 
knee to Caesar, we catch the first clear accents of 
the distinctive and fundamental truth of Chris- 
tianity. Nor must we forget that great Her m on 
is looking down upon this scene, perhaps the 
very reach of the mountain that witnessed the 
transfiguration, and heard the voice from the 
excellent glory, and the Jordan is bursting up 
from the base of the mountain, the sacred river 
that witnessed the first divine acknowledgment 
of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Thus 
nature, the history of religions, and the history 
of man, all conspire to make this rock-based 



58 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

town the most appropriate place in the world for 
the new faith of humanity to first enunciate its 
characteristic truth. 

What was the destiny of this truth, and what 
is our relation to it? As the Kiver Jordan is 
often upon our lips in the language of religious 
symbolism, it may not be amiss for me to make 
a slightly new use of it in illustrating the course 
through history of the truth of Peter's confes- 
sion, which, strangely enough, is strikingly anal- 
agous to the course of the Jordan through Pales- 
tine to the sea. Eight or nine miles from its 
source, the river finds its way into Lake Huleh. 
Thirty miles farther south it glides over its own 
delta into the Lake of Galilee, belted by Greek 
influence and commerce in the time of our Lord. 
Disentangling itself from this body of water, in 
which it seems for a time to be lost, it flows still 
in a southerly direction through the crevice of 
an old ocean bed, a deep, yawning ditch in the 
earth, descending in less than a hundred miles, 
through jungled banks and a poisoned atmos- 
phere, nearly 1300 feet below its surface, empty- 
ing itself into the Dead Sea, to which there is 
no outlet except by evaporation. Breaking out 
at the base of Hermon, where other religions 
had found sanctuary, the Jordan of pure Chris- 
tian truth found its Huleh in Judaism, and its 
Lake of Galilee in Greek philosophy and the 
beginning of the pagan reaction, and then 



THE CRY, ''BACK TO CHRIST." 59 

opened the great ecclesiastical ditch of Roman 
legalism and pagan sacerdotalism, through 
which the Jordan of divine truth, constantly 
dropping below the high level of its source, at 
last found its way into the Dead Sea of the 
Papacy. There it stopped, except that the name 
and truth of Jesus were barely kept alive in the 
world by a thin evaporation from the Dead (Sea) 
See of Rome. The fundamental religious 
problem of our own day is the way back to 
Csesarea and the source of the Jordan, is the 
need of a fresh baptism of theology in the 
sources of Christianity, that thus we may cut a 
new channel for our theological Jordan that it 
may find its way no more into the Dead Sea of 
priestcraft and superstition. 

The men who live to-day have great reason to 
congratulate themselves that the characteristic 
and crowning joy of this new time that looks 
toward the dawn of the twentieth century, is the 
re-discovery and re-coronation of Jesus the 
Christ, the Son of God. The new feeling for 
Christ, which will be satisfied with nothing less 
than his reinvestiture with supreme spiritual 
authority, is the growth of nearly a century's 
travail of thought and investigation. 

The "Leben Jesu" of Strauss in 1835, awoke 
the Christian world from its dreams to study 
the reality of history. Never did so many able 
men devote themselves to the study of Christ; 



60 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

Neander, Ewald, Tholuck, Harless, Engelhardt, 
Ebrard and Hase, took up the life of Jesus and 
exposed the mistakes of Strauss. The Jesus of 
history emerged from the sepulchre of specula- 
tion in which he had been entombed, with 
clearer and clearer light upon his face, much 
better known through this greatest controversy 
of modern times. The interest in Christ for a 
long season simply absorbed the critical world, 
and it has continued to this hour. Notable lives 
of Jesus multiplied. Napoleon suffered eclipse 
through the intenser interest in Jesus. Schenkel 
came forward with his character-sketch of 
Jesus, and made him out a German radical of 
the most pronounced type ; Renan came forward 
next to make of him a Parisian impressionist; 
while Keim and Riggenbach and Pressense and 
Weiss and Beyschlag andNosgen have conducted 
criticism into quieter and truer paths. The 
church of Rome has also contributed a notable 
life of Jesus to the series; I refer, of course, to 
that of Father Didon; while English scholar- 
ship has given in Farrar's, Geikie's and Eders- 
heim's brilliant volumes that help us greatly in 
getting back to Christ. Another great help has 
just been provided by M. Tissot in his marvel- 
ously illustrated "Life of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 

The Ritschlian school in Germany, by far the 
most influential theological movement of the 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 61 

century, has been an important helper in the 
return to historic Christianity in the person of 
its founder. The positive principle of Ritsch- 
lianism is the historical person and revelation of 
Jesus Christ, the founder of the kingdom of 
God. Ritschl strikes a true note when he tells 
us it is time that the mind of the church was 
recalled from abstruse theologies and scholastic 
refinements of doctrine to the fresh, living 
impression of Him whose life and work are the 
foundation of her whole structure. While to 
this German thinker is largely due the wide- 
spread reversion to the idea of "the historic 
Christ" in theology, there is one fatal limitation 
in his system which will bar it from sympathetic 
contact with evangelical Christianity, — it stops 
with the crucifixion. It emphasizes the histor- 
ical but negatives the supernatural revelation in 
Jesus Christ. It raises the cry, "Back to Jesus," 
but it has no living Christ. A system of religion 
which has no empty tomb and no risen Savior,* is 
itself empty, and not destined to rise to the 
exalted level of the New Testament faith. But 
still, Ritschlianism, in its great affirmative prin- 
ciple, the historical persou of Jesus Christ, the 
center and source of revelation, the foundation 
of Christianity and the kingdom of God its most 



*Since this was written a book has appeared by the most 
authoritative writer on Ritschlianism, in which he affirms the 
belief of Ritschl in the resurrection of Christ. 



62 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

vital expression, is true and helpful as far as it 
goes. 

Professor A. B. Bruce of the Free Church 
College in Grlasgow, a follower of Ritschl, as 
far as I have indicated him to be correct, said in 
an address at a Reunion Conference in Switzer- 
land, that he owed his present knowledge of 
Jesus, under God, to the disruption of the 
Scotch Kirk fifty years ago. That ecclesiastical 
rupture, with its accompanying bigotry and bit- 
terness, revealed to him the intrinsic weakness 
and unsatisfactory character of the actual church, 
and drove his sensitive mind from the sorrowful 
reality to the ideal, from the church to the 
kingdom of Grod, from the clergymen to Christ. 
His discovery of Jesus and the kingdo m, 
although at the cost of catastrophe and pain, 
was a blessed experience to him, and to multi- 
tudes of others, for no living writer has done so 
much, through his numerous books, to acquaint 
us with the mind of the Master, as he himself 
reveals it in the Gospels. It was borne in upon 
the mind of Professor Bruce as the sorrowful 
and calamitous fact of religious history that for 
whole centuries together the personal Christ of 
the Cgesarean confession, the real Jesus of the 
parables and the miracles, had been lost — the 
world as empty of his spirit as the tomb of his 
body after he had risen from the dead — lost in 
the church, lost in the cloister, lost in sacra- 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 63 

ments, lost iu creeds, lost in controversy, and 
lost, even in the Bible. The world has had plenty 
and to spare of the ecclesiastical Ch rist of Latin 
Christianity, the metaphysical Christ of Greek 
Christianity, the dogmatic and theological 
Christ of Protestant Christianity, but all too 
little of the historic. Messianic, personal Jesus 
of the Gospels and the kingdom of God, the 
living and loving and reigning Christ of the 
throne. 

Dr. Bruce, in his '^Training of the Twelve," 
*'The Kingdom of God," *'The Parables of 
Jesus," '*The End of Revelation," and the last 
part of his "Apologetics, or Christianity De- 
fensively Stated," has given us a many-sided 
portraiture of Jesus along the lines of his self- 
representation in the evangelical narratives, 
that has made a profound impression on the 
religious life of Scotland and the English 
speaking world. And the unprecedented circu- 
lation on both sides of the Atlantic of Mr. 
Sheldon's book, **In His Steps, or. What Would 
Jesus Do?" has immensely broadened and deep- 
ened and popularized the cry for the return to 
Christ in the actualities and all the phases of 
human life. 

The fathers of our own movement built far 
better than they knew when they insisted that 
the Confession at Csesarea Philippi was the 
characteristic and peculiar truth of Christianity, 



64 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

the only creed of the church, and the only con- 
fession of faith the Apostles required in order 
to baptism and fellowship in the body of Christ. 
Upon the central truth of the incarnation in the 
personality of Jesus, and the need in modern 
times of the divine creed which the Messiahship 
embodies, we have based our plea for a return 
to the Christ of the New Testament. Walter 
Scott's * 'Great Demonstration" was the first 
book written in the English language on the re- 
turn to Christ. The Christological renaissance 
was just beginning in Germany, but at that time 
had not been heard of in this country. Walter 
Scott's great discovery was not baptism for the 
remission of sins, nor a kind of pedagogic clas- 
sification of the elements of the Gospel, but the 
place of Christ in his own religion. He insisted 
on going back, not to Rome, not to the apos- 
tolic fathers, not to the Christianity of the 
fourth century as set forth in the Nicene creed, 
not to Jerusalem simply or chiefly, but to Csesa- 
rea — back to Peter's confession, back to the 
indestructible rock, back to the personal, his- 
toric Christ of the inspired Gospels, back to the 
simple but comprehensive creed of the New Tes- 
tament church, back to the fount of religion 
imdefiled, before the stream was polluted by 
Greek metaphysics, Roman imperialism and 
Protestant sectarianism. The chief difficulty in 
the way of a thorough-going comprehension of 



THE CRY, ''BACK TO CHRIST." 65 

the scope and significance of this plea on the 
part of its advocates, has been the reformation 
dogma of inspiration, which, practically, places 
Ecclesiastes, Chronicles and Jude on the same 
level of authority, if not importance, with the 
words of Christ in the Gospels. The motto, 
*'The Bible and the Bible alone the religion of 
Protestants," has been an unfortunate one for 
Protestantism, for it signifies to the average 
theologian an apotheosis of the Bible that puts 
the Book in the place of the Man. The cry 
*'Back to Jerusalem," has tended from the first 
to shunt the Christ position on to the side track 
of Jewish literalism that neutralizes more than 
half the force of the original plea. Jerusalem 
in poetry and song is the City of the Great 
King, and the prototype of the capital of the 
New Empire of God in the Millennium, but in the 
stern reality of history it is the symbol of the 
fiercest type of intolerance and dogmatism. It 
stoned the prophets, crucified the Redeemer, 
persecuted the Church, and stood, till removed 
by the providence of God, an impassable barrier 
to the manifestation of the kingdom. We may 
pause here long enough to listen to Peter's ser- 
mon, to get fast hold of the new coming of the 
Holy Spirit, and to gather a few lessons from 
the life of the infant church; but we must 
hasten out of the stifling air of an intolerant 

legalism and a fanatical conservatism, and hie 
5 



66 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

away to catch the refreshing breezes of Hermon, 
and to quaff the pure, crystal waters at the 
source of the Jordan in Csesarea Philippi. 

The "old Jerusalem gospel" idea that we 
must come this side of Pentecost to learn the 
conditions of salvation, is thoroughly pernicious 
in several respects. This cuts off the vital 
stream of teaching from the mouth of Jesus con- 
cerning the kingdom of God, when it suits the 
interpreter to cut it off in the making out of his 
mechanical theory of salvation. It cuts off the 
Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, the Para- 
bles, those incomparable spiritual discourses in 
the fourth Gospel delivered in the Temple 
Courts, which contain our Lord's own exposi- 
tion of the way of life, or there is no such way. 
John Calvin's construction of the cry "Back to 
Christ," was the Augustinian interpretation of 
the epistle to the Romans. Some of us construe 
the return to Christ to be a return to the Acts of 
Apostles, and this signifies a certain interpreta- 
tion of its examples of conversion. This is right 
as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough or 
deep enough. Calvinists may return to the 
Romans, and we may go back to the book of 
Acts, and neither of these documents will be 
correctly interpreted unless we go farther. It is 
from the standpoint of the mind of Jesus that 
everything going before and coming after must 
be interpreted and applied. Jesus explains 



THB CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 67 

everything, and then everything explains him, 
but this order must not be reversed, or nothing is 
explained. The first and fundamental necessity 
is the return to the mind of Christ, to his way of 
looking at God and the world, to the spirit of 
Christ, the teaching of Christ, to the Sermon on 
the Mount, the beatitudes, the parables, the con- 
versations, the Galilean ministry, his last utter- 
ances in the Temple Court at Jerusalem, the 
ethics of eternal life, — and I use this last phrase 
as the nearest approach to the expression of my 
conception of the Christianity of Jesus, — and all 
this without sacrificing or minimizing either the 
cross or the new birth. 

The return to Christ, then, which the modern 
position contemplates, is the absolute and un- 
qualified acceptance of the personal Jesus, the 
Divine Man of the Rock of Csesarea Philippi, as 
absolutely the only Savior and spiritual Master 
of the world whom we are bound to follow. 
What does this involve? 

The weakness of Christendom has been its 
substitutions for Christ which have been made 
to supersede him in popular faith and devotion. 
The intelligent student of religious history has 
not failed to observe that the priest, the church, 
and the Bible have often bulked more largely in 
the faith of men than the Master himself ; and 
these have been easily made to lend themselves 
to the perversions of priestcraft, ecclesiasticism 



68 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

and bibliolatry. Priestcraft is an abuse of the 
ministry, ecclesiasticism is an abuse of the 
church, and bibliolatry is an abuse of the Bible, 
and these abuses have been set up as idols in 
the temple of religion, ancient and modern, as 
substitutes for Christ. Three things, therefore, 
must be earnestly considered as falling within 
the scope of the return to Christ. 

1. We must come, in the first place, to the 
prophetic as distinguished from and opposed to 
the priestly conception of religion. It is a fact 
made clear beyond the possibility of reasonable 
controversy by the evangelic narratives, that 
Christ was in the prophetic, but not in the 
priestly succession, except in a purely spiritual 
sense. I heartily agree with Sir Walter Besant 
that the English race is indebted to John Bun- 
yan for two magnificent truths which he burnt 
into the souls of men, but Bunyan himself was 
indebted to his New Testament for these truths. 
First, the direct responsibility of every man to 
God. Secondly, Christianity does not want and 
cannot have a priest. Every man is personally 
responsible to his Maker; there cannot, in the 
nature of things, be any human go-between. 
God reigns; he is like a sphere whose center is 
everywhere, and circumference nowhere. Priests 
stand in the way of human knowledge of this 
mighty spiritual fact; they are the products of 
conventionality and superstition, and the great 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 69 

ecclesiastic structures built round the priest are 
the work of human hands. The first thing that 
Christ does for a man is to tear away these hin- 
drances inherited from Paganism and Judaism, 
and open a way of free access for the soul to 
God, teaching him, in the joy of a new found lib- 
erty, that there is one Mediator between God 
and man, the Man Christ Jesus. In listening to 
Pere Hyacinthe, the illustrious representative of 
the old Catholic movement in Europe, at the 
Reunion Conference at Lucerne, some years ago, 
I was struck with the fact that he used language 
very similar to that which is constantly upon the 
lips of our own people. He spoke of going back 
to the Apostles, and of the restoration of the 
Apostolic Church, but his position when ex- 
plained turned out to be, back to the post-Apos- 
tolic fathers, back to the fourth century, back to 
the Nicene creed, back to the sources of Greek 
and Latin Christianity, and this signifies thus: 
the Apostolic interpretation of Christ, the post- 
Apostolic interpretation of the Apostles, the 
Nicene interpretation of the post- Apostolic fath- 
ers, and the Roman Catholic interpretation of 
the traditions and dogmas of the Nicene docu- 
ments ; but this instead of being the way back to 
Csesarea is the plunge of the ecclesiastical Jor- 
dan into the Dead Sea of the reaction to Juda- 
ism and Paganism. The third and fourth cen- 
turies were the most corrupt and corrupting 



70 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

periods in the history of Christianity. It was 
then that the old sacerdotal trappings and 
priestly externalisms came trooping back in 
swarms into the church, from which Christ had 
expelled them, and most unhappily for mankind, 
they came to stay. The people of these cen- 
turies who became Christians were not prepared 
to understand a religion purely spiritual and 
ethical in its character. They had never seen 
anything of the kind, and they could not con- 
ceive of a religion without a temple, an altar, a 
priesthood, a ritual, without sacrifices, ceremo- 
nies, sacred places, and sacred persons, and 
sacred seasons, and without losing all of the new 
they began unconsciously to read the old back 
into the new. From the analogies of the old 
religions, a process quite easy to understand, 
they came to think of the apostle, the prophet, 
the presbyter, as a priest, and they could not 
think of a priest without thinking of a sacrifice, 
and they could not think of sacrifice without 
thinking of a temple ; and priest, sacrifice, tem- 
ple brought back the old Pagan and Jewish ideas 
which have held sway for many a dreary century 
in the Christian Church. The New Testament* 
by a plausible artifice, could be made to lend 
itself to the support of this paganized concep- 
tion of the Christian religion. The epistle to 
the Hebrews interprets the Christian faith in 
terms of the Jewish temple and priesthood. Its 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 71 

language is borrowed from, the sacrificial system 
of Judaism, but with a new and larger meaning 
read into it. The New Testament writers, being 
Jews, naturally and almost necessarily employed 
the phraseology of the old religion, but they used 
its terms in an accommodated sense with a new 
spiritual significance. If you take up your New 
Testament and read the terms "priest," *'altar," 
*'temple," "sacrifice," "blood," in the old lit- 
eral, sacrificial sense, you Judaize Christianity, 
and find yourself in the very heart of a full 
blown sacerdotalism; but if you pour into these 
words the new spiritual meaning of Jesus Christ 
you Christianize Christianity, you spiritualize 
and ethicize your conception of the gospel, you 
bring yourself at once into sympathy with the 
religion of faith and freedom rev^ealed by the 
Divine Spirit to apostles and prophets. Jesus 
revolutionized religion in freeing it from the old 
priestly conception. He himself was no priest 
in the accepted meaning of the term, and per- 
formed none of the recognized priestly func- 
tions. His Apostles, in like manner, offered no 
sacrifices, wore no sacerdotal garments, and 
never called themselves, or were called by oth- 
ers, by the priestly titles. The primitive church 
presented to the world for the first time the sub- 
lime spectacle of an equality of privilege before 
the Eternal. Christ's work of mediation was 
purely a spiritual function, figuratively repre- 



72 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

sented by reference to the sacrificial phraseology 
of the old dispensation. In respect to the so- 
called priesthood of all Christians, Peter gives 
us a key to the interpretation of all that class of 
facts: '*Ye as living stones are built up a spir- 
itual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spir- 
itual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus 
Christ." Until the priestly idea of religion, in 
all its forms of manifestation, is driven out of 
men's heads and supplanted by the prophetic 
conception, which asserts as its primary doctrine 
the right and privilege of every man to fulfill the 
holiest and most imperial of his duties — that of 
knowing and believing the God who made his 
reason, of worshiping and serving the God who 
speaks in his conscience — without this and the 
whole prophetic ideal of life and conduct real- 
ized in Christ and set forth in his teaching, it is 
impossible for men to understand Jesus Christ 
and the truth concerning him. 

2. In the second place, this return to Christ 
of which I am speaking, means the substitution 
of Christianity for Churchianity, the spiritual 
and practical for the ecclesiastical interpretation 
of religion. Not that we are to despise and repu- 
diate the church, but that we are to come to the 
church through Christ, interpreting it through 
the Mind of the Master, and not by the reverse 
process of coming to Christ through the church. 
There is more importance than at first sight 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 73 

appears in this distinction. There are millions 
of Christians who are in the habit of looking at 
Christ through the church, or their particular 
section of the church, instead of looking at the 
church through Christ, and this fills the wide 
stretching space of difference between a Church- 
man and a Christman. The Churchman puts the 
church in front of Christ. He sees the organi- 
zation, the creed, the ritual, the offices, the 
usages, its outward history; the institution fills 
his eye and Christ is out of sight. He is a dog- 
matist in the Douglas Jerrold sense that dogma- 
tism is puppyism come to maturity. The Chris- 
man puts Christ in front of the church, above it 
and beneath it; this illuminates and purifies the 
institution, spiritualizes its fellowship and makes 
it a fit dwelling-place for the infilling and out- 
shining of God by his Spirit. 

The historic church has been from the first 
imperfect and open to criticism. There are 
great dark stretches of history where it has been 
oftener a hindrance than a help to Christianity. 
There is nothing on which people are so sensi- 
tive, nothing on which there is a wider and more 
hopeless divergence of opinion among Christians 
than the church. It is altogether a delicate and 
a difficult question to deal with. But are we not 
all substantially agreed concerning Christ? Is 
he not the absolute Monarch of our realm? And 
since the saving power of God and the source of 



74 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

authority in religion reside in him alone, need 
we agree in anything else in order to mutual tol- 
erance and Christian fellowship? If we under- 
take to say that all a man has to do is to come to 
the church, we have taken in hand a very diffi- 
cult problem, for he will at once ask us what 
church, and what do you mean by the church? 
This will lead to explanation and discussion, and 
invidious comparisons, and soon we will find our- 
selves plunging and floundering in the turbid 
stream of ecclesiastical controversy, and let me 
confess with sorrow, that church history, to me, 
is neither pleasant nor profitable reading. More- 
over, if we are to depend for the solution of all 
our religious problems on the teaching of the 
church, what a tremendous amount of learning 
and leisure will be required to disentangle the 
skein of history and to trace the tortuous lines 
of the historical growth and development of doc- 
trine. I have neither time nor ability, and why 
should I go to the fathers when I can go to 
Christ? Will any Christian deny that Christ is 
better able to explain the fathers than the fathers 
are to explain Christ? And why should any man 
be confused and distracted by the *'lo heres" and 
"lo theres" of what Canon Hammond has called 
*'Pollychurchism," w'henthe clear ringing accents 
can be heard above the storm of the One Infalli- 
ble Voice? I feel that every thoughtful man 
must agree with Dr. Fairbairn, that we of this 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 75 

age are better able to distinguish that Voice than 
any other Christian century since the first. We 
know more of the historic Christ to-day than 
ever men knew before since he was here. As 
the result of investigation and criticism the real 
Christ of history stands before the modern mind 
more clearly and luminously than he has ap- 
peared to any other since the apostolic age. 
The happiest and most hopeful sign of the times 
is the symptom here and there manifesting itself 
that the church is beginning to marshal its forces 
around the central fact and figure of history, the 
adorable person of our Divine Redeemer; and 
when this movement has been far enough ad- 
vanced to reach the standpoint of Csesarea Phil- 
ippi, all our church problems will be compara- 
tively easy of solution. Under Christ the church 
must not regulate Christianity but Christianity 
must regulate the church. The church is not 
the head of Christ, but Christ is the head of the 
church, and hence we must interpret the church 
through Christ, and not Christ through the 
church. 

3. Another point involved in the issue before 
us is the personal supremacy of Christ over the 
literature of revelation by which a knowledge of 
him is conveyed to mankind. As many Protes- 
tants make a Savior of the Bible, as Roman 
Catholics make a Savior of the church. Bibli- 
olatry and ecclesiolatry sin in the exaltation of 



76 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

the media of our knowledge of Christ above 
Christ himself. The Bible is the organ of reve- 
lation, the church is the organ of the H0I3' Spirit 
and the purchase of Christ's blood, and both are 
23recious and indispensable; but the man who 
comes to the Bible and insists on looking at 
Christ through a preconceived interpretation of 
the book, learned by rote, rather than at the 
Bible through the mind of Christ, is putting the 
fruit before the root and starting in the way 
that makes narrow dogmatists instead of broad- 
minded and generous-hearted Christians. It is 
true that our first knowledge of Christ is derived 
from the Bible, and equally true that no man 
can adequately understand the Bible except he 
read it through the mind and from the stand- 
point of Jesus. There are men who insist on 
explaining Christ through the Old Testament in 
place of interpreting the Old Testament through 
Christ. It is scarcely possible to imagine a 
greater mistake. If, for example, you burden 
yourself with Old Testament difficulties when 
you begin to reason with the unbeliever, you will 
fail of your purpose to bring him to Christ by 
that road. I have for a long time been under 
the distinct impression that we make a serious 
tactical blunder in loading the non-Christian in- 
quirer with assumptions and theories of inspira- 
tion and Biblical infallibility upon the threshold 
of his inquiry into the merits of the Christian 



THE CRY, ''BACK TO CHRIST." 77 

revelation. He starts in that case with the very 
difficulties that have made him a skeptic, and 
that predispose him to a prejudiced investiga- 
tion. If we laid these evangelic narratives be- 
fore him, and said, make a careful, candid and 
critical study of these biographical fragments of 
the great Person, take nothing for granted, as- 
sume nothing as proven or disproven, disengage 
yourself from the entangling meshes of church 
theories of inspiration and Biblical inerrancy; 
study these histories and this Person on their 
own merits, and tell us candidly what you think 
of the portrait and the painting. Instructions 
like these would disarm prejudice and predispose 
the mind to an impartial and truth-seeking inves- 
tigation, which, as a rule, could have but one 
result. If you start men with Christ they will 
stay with him, but if you start them at a distant 
standpoint seriously handicapped and burdened 
with difficulties, the very difficulties that have 
caused their troubles, the chances are they will 
never find their way to him. If you should listen 
to an infidel orator hurling his negative criti- 
cism at the Christian faith, nine cases in ten 
he would be engaged in the congenial task of 
picking holes in the Old Testament. He would 
labor with might and main to sheet home to the 
Christians' God the direct responsibility of every 
shady transaction and every questionable sen- 
tence in the Book, forgetting, of course, that 



78 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

the Old Testament is a record of a progressive 
revelation, that its different portions were many 
hundreds of years in course of writing, and that 
during the whole of this time God was revealing 
himself more and more fully to mankind, "try- 
ing to express eternal things in mortal speech." 
Have any of us been able to realize what a diffi- 
cult thing it must have been for God to reveal him- 
self to man at all, except in a very indefinite and 
general way? It is extremely difficult for the 
wisest men to get fresh ideas into people's heads. 
Dr. Dale, of Birmingham, who preached to one 
of the most intellectual audiences in England, 
declared that it took him fifteen years to famil- 
iarize the minds of his people with a new con- 
ception. Mr. Gladstone has testified to the 
immense difficulty which he had of getting the 
average Englishman to understand a new pro- 
posal. Our own experience goes to show that it 
takes at least fifty years of incessant hammering 
to get one leading truth well into the public 
mind; and when it becomes familiar and well 
understood, new light calls for further change, 
and we begin again to hammer, breaking up the 
old and ramming in the new, and so the hammer- 
ing process, like Tennyson's brook, goes on for- 
ever. As God's thoughts are not as our thoughts, 
we can readily understand how hard it must have 
been all through the ages of revelation for God 
to make himself intelligible to man. As a result 



THE CRY, ''BACK TO CHRIST." 79 

the moral standard of the New Testament is so 
much higher than that of the Old, when the dis- 
ciples desired to imitate Elijah and call down fire 
from heaven to consume their enemies, Christ 
rebuked them sharply, declaring that it would be 
wrong for them to do what Elijah did in the 
early dawn of revelation. The end explains the 
beginning and not the beginning the end. We 
must not suppose, however, when we come to 
the New Testament, that it is superior to Christ, 
or in any sense displaces him as the ultimate 
authority in religion. The New Testament is 
invaluable to us and fundamental to Christianity, 
not because it contains a mass of infallible dicta, 
but because it conducts to Christ. We must not 
look at Christ primarily through Paul or John or 
Peter, but at them through him. The Epistles 
do not explain the Gospels. The Gospels explain 
the Epistles. Christianity means Christ as he 
explains himself, and not as others explain him. 
The consciousness of Christ is the revelation 
of God, and Christ best explains for us his own 
consciousness. The supreme question now is, 
What did Christ think of himself? where do 
Christ's own views come in? are they really over- 
topped and vitiated by the teaching of the apos- 
tles? This question is forcing itself more and 
more to the front. Is the teaching of Christ a 
rudimentary form of Christianity which the 
other transcended, or was it a perfect form 



80 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

which they only supplemented? Christ fre- 
quently spoke of his own words in terms of 
grandeur which it would be difficult to surpass. 
In his own eyes he was the sovereign prophet of 
his teaching. Christ claimed to himself the 
position of a teacher far above all those who 
preceded him, and still more did he place him- 
self above all who came after him. There could 
be no more emphatic warning against placing 
the apostles on the same level as the Master. 
From the point of view of the old doctrine of 
inspiration, the objection might be used, and I 
have often heard it, Why should the words of 
Jesus be considered more important than the 
rest of the Bible? Even from the old point of 
view, that objection can be met with a decisive 
answer. It is true, in one sense, that all parts 
of Scripture are equally important, because they 
are parts of a whole, which would be mutilated 
if any of those parts, even the smallest, were 
absent. But of the whole revelation none can 
be compared to the words of Jesus. 

By some this contrast, however, is carried 
farther, and it is proposed to convert the teach- 
ing of Christ into a standard with which to crit- 
icise and correct the rest of Scripture. For- 
merly the whole Bible was looked upon as the 
single authority. At first the Old Testament 
was dropped and the New Testament adopted. 
And now the narrowing process is carried f urth- 



' THE CRY, ''BACK TO CHRIST." 81 

er, and the contention is made that the author- 
ity is not the New Testament as a whole, but the 
teaching of Christ alone, and some have gone so 
far as to exclude all the teaching of Christ 
except the Sermon on the Mount. This is the 
position taken up by Dr. John Watson in "The 
Mind of the Master," and by Count Tolstoi in 
numerous books. But Jesus expressly said that 
after his death he would speak through his 
inspired apostles in continuation of his own 
teaching. The only question, therefore, is the 
harmony of the apostolic interpretation with 
that of the Lord himself. For a long time the 
return to Christ meant a violent reaction against 
Paulinism, or rather against what was mistaken 
for the teachings of the apostle. That was the 
price we had to pay for emancipation from the 
tyranny of scholastic Protestantism, which only 
allowed Christ to be approached through Paul. 
But now there are distinct evidences that we are 
coming nearer to a condition of equipoise. A 
calmer judgment is affirming the immense im- 
portance of the man who saved Christianity 
from degenerating into the private creed of a 
Jewish sect. Quite a library of works on Paul 
has appeared of late, and the fertile theme 
seems to be inexhaustible. Renan, Pfleiderer, 
Sabatier, Beyschlag, Stevens, Cone, Lyman 
Abbott and others, have set forth different 
phases of the great apostle's life and work. The 



82 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

peculiarity of this newer study of Paul is that it 
is all carried on in the historical spirit, not 
with a view to establish dogmatic theology, but 
in order to understand the man and his ideas. 
The result is a general consensus of the best 
critical opinion, that Paul's contribution to 
Christianity as a spiritual, universal religion is 
second only to that of his divine Master. 

4. A fourth point can only be mentioned; 
there is no time for its discussion. It is the most 
vital point of all. The return to Christ involves 
fundamentally and necessarily an immediate 
application of the ethics of Jesus to modern 
life. It is this consideration in Mr. Sheldon's 
little book, "What Would Jesus Do?" that has 
stirred the whole English-speaking world as no 
one book has ever stirred it before. It has 
helped men to realize that the ultimate concern 
of Christianity is not to propagate metaphysical 
orthodoxy, but to work out a moral reformation 
and to reconstruct society on sounder principles. 
This new study of the Savior has brought us 
face to face with the problem that the great 
need is straightforwardness and courage in ap- 
plying Christianity to the conduct of business 
and the regulation of sociaUpolitical affairs. 
The ethics of eternal life must be applied to 
individual character, and the church must make 
this the most vital part of its message. Dogma- 
tism and bigotry can no longer do duty for Chris- 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 83 

tian love and good morals. Polemic religion is 
played out. Controversial Christianity is a back 
number, except in the backwoods. The nar- 
rowness and bitterness of the sectarian spirit are 
giving way to the sweetness and light of the 
gospel of the Cross. We are learning, under 
Christ, to displace the metaphysics of the creeds 
with the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount, 
and the altruism of the judgment scene in the 
twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew. Fighting 
stress is now laid, not on the difference between 
tweedledum and tweedledee, but on the differ- 
ence between a life of sin and a life of right- 
eousness. A return to the Logia has taught 
us that Christianity is a law, a life, a spirit, a 
character, and not shallow theories about specu- 
lative trifles. Thanks to investigation, criticism, 
research, and the freedom of the modern spirit, 
our convictions are growing deeper, our ideals 
higher, our spirit is better, our faith is stronger, 
we understand Jesus Christ more profoundly, 
and may we not say the united kingdom of 
heaven is at hand? 

The whole substance of the divine plea for the 
return to Christ is this: In every thing and in 
all things, make Christ the starting-point, the 
path-finder, the source of authority, the revela- 
tion of God, the ideal, the judge, the interpre- 
ter, the Prophet, Priest and King. It was on 
this conception of Him that the apostles 



84 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

founded the Church and proclaimed the king- 
dom of God. This is my gospel, it is the only 
theology, if I may call it such, I have ever pro- 
pounded or ever expect to propound. I have 
found in it the solution of all my difficulties, the 
answer to all my questions, the satisfaction of 
all my desires, the joy of my own heart, the in- 
spiration of my life, and I do not hesitate, there- 
fore, to commend it with all confidence and 
affection to others. As I have grown older my 
creed has become shorter. At the last revision 
it stood thus, and having found bed rock it will 
ever stand: *'My faith looks up to thee, thou 
Lamb of Calvary, Savior Divine." 

J. J. Haley. 



Zhc Cry ^'Back to Christ/^— H Review. 

LEAVING the many good and strong points in 
the paper that has just been read to speak 
for themselves, I proceed at once to the task of 
an adverse critic, kindly pointing out what 
seem to me to be material defects in Brother 
Haley's essay. 

1. That Christ chose the region of Csesarea 
Philippi as the place where he elicited from 
Peter the ''central and crucial proposition of his 
religion" for the reason implied in the paper, 
looks like a strained, unwarranted and unreas- 
onable assumption. Just what is meant by **the 
neutrality of pagan soil" is by no means clear. 
The essayist points out the fact that it was a land 
of idolatry in its grosser forms, and therefore 
it was not a country of religious neutrality. It 
was a place where "the Semites worshiped the 
Baalim, the Greeks adored Pan, and the Romans 
bowed the knee to Caesar," and these things and 
the truth that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
the living God," are certainly not congenial. I 
do not think that Jerusalem was as repellant to 
Jesus as it seems to be to Brother Haley. The 

true and living God was known and worshiped 

85 



86 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

there, and many sacred and hallowed memories 
clustered about it; and in view of religious 
characteristics I can see nothing that would have 
drawn the Master "as far away from Jerusalem 
as he could get," into a land where "men wor- 
shiped side by side the forces of nature and the 
incarnation of political power." There would 
be some consistency in our essayist's contention, 
if Christ had told the apostles "to tarry in 
Csesarea Philippi till endued with power from 
on high," and had said that "repentance and 
remission of sins should be preached in his name 
among all nations, beginning from Csesarea 
Philippi." That he meant to disparage Jerusa- 
lem by selecting a land of idolatry as a more 
fitting place to make the first announcement of 
the central truth of the gospel, and then se- 
lected the slighted and dishonored city as the 
radiating center of his kingdom, seems extreme- 
ly improbable. 

Jerusalem may be the "City of the great King in 
poetry and song," but it is also in Scripture the 
city of prophecy in connection with Christ and 
his kingdom, and he who slights that city in his 
search for Christ will not find the Christ of 
sacred history. "For out of Zion shall go forth 
the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusa- 
lem." This law and this word of the Lord are 
for the purpose of showing forth Christ in his 
fullness. The Christ that Peter confessed at 



THE CRY, *'BACK TO CHRIST." 87 

Csesarea Philippi, was a very small Jewish Christ 
whom the apostle afterwards forsook and de- 
nied. The winds from Hermon, laden with the 
cold, chilling conception of Christ which the 
Jews (including Peter) entertained, dwarf him 
into very small proportions as compared with 
the Christ that the Holy Spirit revealed on Pen- 
tecost. It requires Zion and Jerusalem to put 
life and warmth and power into the Christ of 
Hermon. We must go to Jerusalem to find the 
Christ who shows us an empty tomb and pre- 
sents himself as alive from the dead. We must 
stand upon Zion within the enclosure of Jerusa- . 
lem, if we would hear the voice which assures us 
of this all-important fact: "Let all the house 
of Israel know assuredly that God hath made 
him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye 
crucified." Zion is really the Mount of final, 
permanent and complete transfiguration, in 
which for the first time we behold Jesus in his 
true Christhood and Lordship. Standing upon 
this summit we witness the rising of the Sun of 
Righteousness, the warmth of whose rays melts 
away the snows of Hermon, and whose glorious 
light dissipates the darkness that resides in the 
shadow of the northern mountain. In the light 
that glorifies the top of the mountain of the 
Lord, and amid the gentle, warm and congenial 
zephyrs that fan the face of the City of the 
Great King, we see the Christ of Hermon and 



88 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

Csesarea Philippi expand into the Christ of Zion 
and Jerusalem. Thus we are enabled to see the 
Great World-Christ instead of the Jewish Christ 
that dwelt in the mind of Peter when he made 
his confession. That Christ would be meaning- 
less and powerless without the supplemental 
Christ of Pentecost and Jerusalem. 

The reason it gives Brother Haley the shivers 
to contemplate Jerusalem is found in the fact 
that he fails to discriminate between the two 
Jerusalems, — the Jewish Jerusalem and the 
Christian Jerusalem, the fleshly Jerusalem and 
the spiritual Jerusalem. It was the Jewish Jeru- 
salem, the fleshly Jerusalem, that stoned the 
prophets, crucified the Redeemer and persecuted 
the Church. The Christian Jerusalem, the spir- 
itual Jerusalem, had neither part nor lot in these 
matters. In the fleshly Jerusalem are heard the 
jangling voices of the Pharisees, the scribe and 
the priest; there are seen the mockeries of a 
merely formal religion; there is heard the shout 
of the mob that cries, "Away with Him ! Crucify 
Him!" there is seen the bloody hand of perse- 
cution that wastes and scatters the Church. But 
in the Christian Jerusalem, the spiritual Jerusa- 
lem, we see the glory of God and the beauty and 
sweetness of a spiritual brotherhood in Christ 
Jesus ; there we hear the song of mercy and par- 
don ; there we behold, the wonderful works of 
the Lord as he magnifies the name of his Christ; 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 89 

there we discover the way of life and salvation 
as illuminated by the light that shines from the 
face of the Son of God; there we feel the thrill 
of the joy and satisfaction that are born of the 
assurance that ''God hath made him both Lord 
and Christ." If we linger in the proper Jerusa- 
lem there is nothing to blight, nothing to chill, 
nothing to dwarf, nothing to alarm. We need 
not go to Hermon at all, for the Holy Spirit has 
brought Hermon down to Mt. Zion, and given it 
a new significance and a new beauty, and now, 
as never before, we can see Christ as the fairest 
among ten thousand, and the One altogether 
lovely. In Jerusalem we find the Christ of hope, 
the Christ of promise, the Christ of glory, the 
Christ of salvation. A Christ that has not 
passed through the grave, that did not go into 
the heavens, that was not made both Lord and 
Christ, that did not send forth what the people 
saw and heard in Jerusalem, is not the Christ 
whom the soul needs. Select the right Jerusa- 
lem, and in her lap you may rest with perfect 
security. 

2. I am acquainted with no *'old Jerusalem 
gospel" idea which says that we must come this 
side of Pentecost to learn the conditions of sal- 
vation, nor do I know what Brother Haley means 
by that remark. Very sure I am that we must 
come this side of the empty tomb of Christ to 
find a direct and plain statement of the condi- 



90 OUR FIRST CONGRKSS. 

tions of salvation. "He that believeth and is 
baptized shall be saved," is Christ's own declar- 
ation on this subject, and this is the law that 
was to go forth on Mt. Zion. If we would under- 
stand this matter we must come to Pentecost, 
for then the first offer of salvation was made 
under this commission. Repentance and remis- 
sion of sins were to be preached among all 
nations in the name of Christ, beginning from 
Jerusalem; and if the idea of going to Pente- 
cost to find out how to be saved is pernicious, 
then the teaching of the Master himself is per- 
nicious. Just how going to Pentecost "cuts off 
the vital stream of teaching from the mouth of 
Jesus concerning the kingdom of God," is 
known only to those who are wise above what is 
written. Surely the Holy Spirit never said any- 
thing on or after Pentecost that is inconsistent 
with anything that Christ said before Pentecost. 
He who finds a full and complete way of salvation 
proclaimed before Pentecost, cuts off the Com- 
mission from the mouth of the Savior, and dis- 
allows the speech of the Holy Spirit on Pente- 
cost. What the Spirit then said is just as 
authoritative and binding as anything that 
Christ ever uttered in person. The idea of 
pitting one portion of Scripture against another 
is thoroughly pernicious, and equally pernicious 
is the idea of constructing a theory of salvation 
upon what Christ said in person, and then 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 91 

twisting what he said through the Spirit after- 
wards, into harmony with that theory. If Christ 
taught a full and complete way of salvation for 
an alien sinner in the Sermon on the Mount, in 
the parables, in the conversations, in the Gali- 
lean ministry, in his last utterances in the Tem- 
ple Court at Jerusalem, etc., what is the mean- 
ing of the Commission, in which he conditions 
salvation on faith and baptism? and what is the 
meaning of the language of the Spirit who con- 
ditions the remission of sins on repentance and 
baptism? 

That '*some of us construe the return to Christ 
to be a return to the Acts of the Apostles" is 
news to me. There are those who think that 
the book of Acts must be used in getting back 
to Christ, but surely no one holds that the ter- 
minal point is in Acts. That document is simply 
one of the gateways that lead to Christ, and he 
who leaps over it, or goes around it, will not 
find the real Christ, the Savior of the world. 
From Acts we first learn that God made Jesus 
both Lord and Christ, and in Acts we find the 
first proclamation of repentance and remission 
of sins in the name of Christ. It is true that 
Acts will not be correctly understood without 
the Gospels, but it is equally true that the latter 
will not be correctly understood without the 
former. Christ is in Acts as well as in the Gos- 
pels, and we see some features of him there 



92 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

that we do not see so clearly here. It is correct 
to say that everything must be interpreted from 
the mind of Christ, but how do we get acquainted 
with the mind of Christ? Does the only avenue 
of access to Christ's mind lie through the Holy 
Scriptures? The notion that "our first knowl- 
edge of Christ is derived from the Bible," im- 
plies that there is a second knowledge of Christ 
that is derived from some other source. This 
idea is dangerous in the extreme. It opens a 
way for all kinds of wild vagaries and unbridled 
fanaticism. This conceit has done more to par- 
alyze the Bible and cause it to be regarded as "a 
dead letter," than almost anything else. This 
implied **second knowledge" is perhaps the 
father of the spirit that characterizes high re- 
gard for the Bible as "bibliolatry." This vague 
and indefinite something, that comes from do 
one knows where, is to revise and correct the 
writings of the apostles, through whom '*we 
must not look at Christ primarily." Here our 
essayist seems to contradict what he says about 
getting "our first knowledge of Christ from the 
Bible." Dictionaries have led me to suppose 
that primary means first. 

The tap-root of this doctrine seems to me to 
be about this: One forms an idea of Christ 
from a "second knowledge" of him, derived 
from some other source than the writings of the 
apostles, and then makes that idea the standard 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 93 

by which the sacred writings are to be inter- 
preted. This is what Universalism and Unita- 
rianism do. The former sees in Christ an un- 
conditional Savior of the world, and interprets 
Paul and Peter and John accordingly. The 
latter sees in Jesus a mere man, and the apos- 
tolic writings must bend to this theory. Kenan 
and the whole rationalistic school of teachers 
appear to occupy this ground. Is it possible for 
Brother Haley or me to have a better under- 
standing of the mind of Christ than the apos- 
tles who had the Spirit to guide them into all the 
truth? *'He shall take of mine and show it to 
you," said the Master to the apostles concerning 
the Spirit. This means that the Spirit was to 
reveal the mind of Christ to the apostles, and 
that they might not err he told them that it 
would not be they who would speak, but the 
Holy Spirit speaking in or through them. I do 
not believe that any knowledge of the mind of 
Christ that does not come through the Script- 
ures is trustworthy. If he is not interpreted 
through the Scriptures, he will be misinter- 
preted. 

3. If it is a mistake to "insist on explaining 
Christ through the Old Testament," it is a much 
greater mistake to insist on interpreting Christ 
through a theory of that book, which some men 
are doing. A theory is constructed concerning 
date and authorship of parts of the Old Testa- 



94 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

ment, and then Christ is explained in his use of 
those documents by such theory. As thus ex- 
plained, either his knowledge must be limited, 
or he is forced to sanction egregious errors in ac- 
commodation to a popular mistake. This is thor- 
oughly pernicious. . If the Old Testament is to 
be interpreted through Christ, Moses wrote the 
Pentateuch, for he says, "Moses wrote of me." 
If the Old Testament is to be interpreted through 
Christ, and not Christ through the Old Testa- 
ment, then the prophet Daniel wrote the book 
of Daniel, for he says that "the abomination of 
desolation" was spoken of "by Daniel the 
prophet." If this principle is sound, Jonah was 
"three days and three nights in the whale's 
belly," for Christ so declares. Interpreting the 
Old Testament through Christ is a good rule 
unless it is to be modified by some such clause 
as "when it suits me." The essayist is alto- 
gether correct when he indicates that "you should 
not burden yourself with Old Testament difficul- 
ties when you begin to reason with the unbe- 
liever." But suppose the unbeliever burdens you 
with the difficulties a certain school of critics have 
thrust upon the Old Testament, and begins to 
sing the song of errancy, ungenuineness, mis- 
takes, etc., that he has perhaps learned from 
you. Then you find yourself hors de combat and 
hoist with your own petard. Many unbelievers 
know much more about these difficulties than 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 95 

they know about the Bible, for they are not 
''cribbed, cabined and confined." When you 
find an unbelieving mind that has not been prej- 
udiced and poisoned with critical difliculties, the 
thing to do is to present Christ as he appears in 
the Gospels, with the distinct understanding that 
everything he says therein is true, and that 
everything that the writers say about him is 
true. The literature that is to reach and influ- 
ence the young mind in the Sunday-school 
should not be burdened with these difficulties. 

4. I am not sure that I fully know the mind 
of Bro. Haley as regards the church, but his 
words seem to me to unnecessarily and wrongly 
disparage that divine institution. If he would 
discriminate between the church of the New 
Testament and the church of subsequent history, 
what he says would be unobjectionable. He 
seems to laud and exalt the Kingdom of God 
while depreciating the Church of God. The 
New Testament church is the Body of Christy 
and the kingdom of heaven, and I do not see 
how you can discount one without discounting 
the other. Christ died for the church, and it is 
ordained that "unto the principalities and the 
powers in the heavenly places might be made 
known through the church the manifold wisdom 
of God." The church of God should not be 
disparaged, for it is of equal importance with the 
kingdom of God; yea, it is the kingdom of God. 



96 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

I am unable to see the justice of lumping **the 
apostolic interpretation of Christ" in with "the 
post-apostolic interpretation of the apostles, 
the Nicene interpretation of the post-apostolic 
fathers, and the Roman Catholic interpretation 
of the traditions and dogmas of the Nicene docu- 
ments," and throwing them all overboard as 
equally worthless. If, having received the 
Spirit to guide them, the apostles did not inter- 
pret Christ correctly, we may despair of ever 
getting a correct interpretation of him. 

5. The paper seems to betray some confusion 
of thought as to the relative importance of the 
words of Christ and those of the apostles. "The 
supreme question now is. What did Christ think 
of himself, where do Christ's own views come 
in, are they really overtopped and vitiated by 
the teaching of the apostles? This question is 
forcing itself more and more to the front." 
With whom is this the supreme question? and 
who is forcing it to the front? If such a ques- 
tion is being agitated I am in blissful ignorance 
of it; nor do I believe that there are those who 
are contending that Christ's views are "over- 
topped and vitiated by the teaching of the apos- 
tles." If so, they deserve the scorn of all 
Christians. "Is the teaching of Christ a rudi- 
mentary form of Christianity which the others 
transcended, or was it a perfect form which they 
only supplemented?" The paper seems to deny 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 97 

the first hypothesis and affirm the second. I am 
not able to see how that which is perfect can be 
supplemented. A supplement is **an addition to 
anything, by which it is made more full and 
complete." The teaching of Christ is not **a 
rudimentary form of Christianity," but a per- 
fect part of a s^^stem that was not perfected till 
the Holy Spirit came and did his work; if so, 
the work of the Spirit was superfluous. He 
came to complete something, and not to supple- 
ment something that was already complete, 
which is an impossibility. 

What is meant by the declaratiou that Christ 
placed himself **above all who came after him" 
is not clear. If the reference is to authority, the 
point is well taken, for all authority was given 
into his hands. But the context indicates that 
in teaching Christ put himself above all that 
should come after him. This makes him put 
himself above himself, for Bro. Haley himself 
says that ** Jesus expressly said that after his 
death he would speak through his inspired apos- 
tles in continuation of his own teaching." It is 
true, then, that whatever Christ taught through 
his apostles is just as high and just as important 
as anything that he ever taught through his own 
person. In view of this, what becomes of the 
**emphatic warning against placing the apostles 
on the same level as the Master?" The teach- 
ing of XDhrist and the teaching of the apostles 
7 



98 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

are not two teachings, but two parts of one and 
the same teaching, Christ being the teacher all 
the way through. No invidious distinctions 
should be made between the teaching of Christ 
and that of the apostles. 

6. "Polemic religion is played out. Contro- 
versial Christianity is a back number except in 
the backwoods." These statements look strange 
in their polemic and controversial setting, for 
the paper bristles with controversy, and I pre- 
sume that those who are conducting a crusade 
against * 'controversial Christianity" will have to 
be understood about thus: *'My controversy is 
all right, but your controversy is all wrong." 
Opposition to controversy is itself controversy. 
But are the statements true? If so. New Testa- 
ment religion *'is played out," and apostolic 
Christianity "is a back number except in the 
backwoods." Christ himself was a master in 
controversy, and Paul was an expert in polemics. 
"How then does David call him Lord?" is a 
sample of the Master's incisive controversy. 
Paul disputed, controverted in the synagogue at 
Ephesus for three months, and then transferred 
the disputation, the controversy, to the school of 
Tyrannus and carried it on for two years ; and 
he was in a constant controversy with the Jewish 
teachers, who taught a corrupt form of Chris- 
tianity. Indeed, the New Testament is a 
history of one of the hottest controversies that 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 99 

ever agitated the world ; and the history of the 
gospel from then till now is a history of contro- 
versy. Polemic religion gave us the Lutheran 
Reformation, and controversial Christianity gave 
us our own restoration movement, and some of 
us are now occupying feathered nests that were 
built by the hands of ''polemic religion." We 
can certainly afford to use decorous respect in 
referring to the men and the methods that have 
made us what we are and given us what we have. 
It is not nice to fling mud at the bridge that has 
brought us over. Truth has always had to make 
its way in the world through conflict and con- 
troversy, and the mission of Christianity is to 
controvert everything that is wrong; and a 
Christianity that is not controversial is inane 
and puerile. 

With many of Bro. Haley's positions I am in 
hearty accord, and I close this review with a 
thorough indorsement of what seems to be his 
fundamental thesis, namely: "The return to 
Christ, then, which the modern position con- 
templates, is the absolute and unqualified ac- 
ceptance of the personal Jesus, the Divine Man 
of the Rock of Csesarea Philippi, as absolutely 
the only Savior and spiritual Master of the 
world whom we are bound to follow." This, 
however, is not so very modern. 

J. B. Briney. 
L.ofr 



Cbe Cry ''Back to Christ/'— H Review; 

THE cry *'Back to Christ" is inevitable; his- 
torical and literary criticism have made it 
so. Historical and literary criticism are inevita- 
ble; the inductive method has made them so. 
The inductive method is inevitable; common 
sense and the progress of man have made it so. 
The deductive method was not progressive. It 
was an intellectual tread-mill. Its premises, 
syllogisms and conclusions, the latter becoming 
the premises for other syllogisms and conclu- 
sions, went round and round, like a log in a 
whirlpool. Thirteen centuries of deductive phi- 
losophy — misnamed theology — left the world 
where Luther found it religiously, and where 
Bacon found it empirically. Macaulay likens 
the centuries dominated by this method to such 
of the matrons of Ancient Rome as refused to 
bear children, disdaining to be fruitful that they 
might be beautiful. 

* This paper can scarcely claim, to be a review of J. J. Haley's 
paper on the subject, "Back to Christ," since this was written before 
its author had seen that. No material change has been made in it 
since Mr. Haley's excellent paper appeared. Its production proceeded 
wholly from what the writer deemed to be the merits of the subject 
itself, and from his previous knowledge of Mr. Haley's position. Of 
that position Mr. Haley himself was kind enough to pronounce the 
paper an excellent summary. — W.J. Lhamon. 

100 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 101 

However, this method was not entirely fruit- 
less. Though it refused to improve agriculture, 
and harness steam and lightning to the mills 
of men, and sweeten domestic relations, and 
popularize education, and turu monarchies into 
democracies, and on the ruins of slavery build 
fraternity, and replace pagan altars with com- 
munion tables — though it refused to do such 
things, it did breed dogmatism; it stood as the 
foster-mother to sacramentalism, and from its 
lap have gone forth the damnation clauses of 
the Holy Roman symbols, together with such 
impossible creeds as are now trying to get them- 
selves partially revised or wholly forgotten. 

The deductive method did not rebuke the In- 
quisition, did not abate priestcraft, did not 
emancipate the popular mind, and did not free 
us from a vast mass of unwholesome tradition. 

With the advent of the inductive method came 
our reverence for facts as against theories, for 
history as against speculation, for deed as 
against dogma, for investigation as against tra- 
dition, and for Christology as against theology. 
With the advent of the inductive method we 
have made a complete "about-face," and we 
have hit upon a whole new world. We esteem 
facts, when we can get at them, as legal tender, 
and we have lost all reverence for count of holy 
noses. We have dethroned tradition and we 
have enthroned .investigation. What we call 



102 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

historical criticism is but the inductive method 
applied to history, and what we call literary crit- 
icism is but the inductive method applied to lit- 
erature, and what we call Biblical criticism is 
but the inductive method applied to the Bible. 
Everything must go into the crucible of this 
method. What is dross is bound to be burned 
away; the gold will abide. In the crucible of 
this method tradition means little and dogma 
means nothing. Thank God it is so. We want 
a Bible that can stand on its own merits pre- 
cisely as Shakespeare does, or Whittier, or the 
multiplication table. If the Bible is vulnerable 
by reason of its intrinsic feebleness or falseness, 
no theory of inspiration, no traditional canon- 
icity can save it. If the Bible is false, inspiration 
cannot make it true. If it is true the inspira- 
tion of it is a secondary matter. By its assured 
truth or falsity, and not by its assured inspira- 
tion, it must stand or fall. All theories of in- 
spiration are on trial quite as much as the Bible 
itself, or even more so, and very likely we shall 
come at last to believe that the book is inspired 
because it is true, rather than it is true because 
it is inspired. Possibly we shall find that it is 
easier to reach the inspiration of it by way of the 
truth of it, than the truth of it by way of the 
inspiration of it. In any event the question of 
inspiration is secondary, the question of historic 
verity is primary. 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 103 

As regards the New Testament, the above is 
but saying in other words that Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, John, Peter, James, Jude and Paul are on 
trial — not as inspired writers, but as historians, 
and as brother men. As brother men, historians 
and witnesses to Christ they must be received if 
at all, and not at all as legislators, or dicta- 
tors, or creed-formulators, or dogmatists of any 
sort. Brother men to the rest of us — that is the 
superscription they bear, and we infer that their 
eccentricities, foibles and deficiencies are cousins 
to our own. They rise not above the level of 
the human, they belong to our category; they 
stand in the light of Jesus and cast such shadows 
as we do. Our measuring-reeds are not too 
short for them, they fight in our defective 
armor — and, in short, we who have thrown off 
all traditionalism, who have revolted from all 
dogmatism, who have taken seriously to heart 
the solidarity of humanity, will not bow to them. 
I speak in all this as seeking to express in a few 
bold words the spirit of our times. This age will 
not conjure even with the superlative nathe of 
Paul until it has had reasons for doing so. If, 
therefore, we are to have authority it must come 
from a source higher than the human ; if we are 
to have a revelation reaching beyond reason, it 
must proceed from one more reasonable than 
ourselves; if we are to have an infallible cap- 
taincy, the one in whom it rests must fight in an 



104 OUR FIRST CONGRKSS. 

armor that neither Saul nor David can wear; if 
we are to bow the knee, it must be to one not of 
our category. The cry, "Back to Christ," is 
inevitable, and it is the only saving cry. 

But how are we to get back to Christ except 
by the infallible writings of these men? This is 
the crux to the whole matter. We must reach 
our infallible Christ through the hypothesis of 
a fallible medium, and thereafter, if ever, prove 
our medium to have been infallible. The pro- 
cedure maybe a strange one, but it is a neces- 
sary one, and not an impossible one. It may be 
a dilemma, but Christ helps us out of it. His 
career was such that the very shadows cast by 
the defects of his representatives are indicative 
of his perfections. The New Testament writers, 
however human and fallible they may be upon 
our hypothesis, enshrine for us in their produc- 
tions a character that is superhuman and infalli- 
ble — so that when we behold the moral manhood 
of Jesus towering into Godhood, we find our- 
selves constrained to say, "This sun is perfect, 
though he shines through our fog." And yet 
further we are compelled to say, "This fog of 
ours did not create this perfect sun." And 
further still — and at last — we find ourselves say- 
ing, "Perhaps this perfect sun will yet dispel 
this hypothetical fog of ours — much of it, if not 
all of it." 

The recovery, therefore, of the historic Christ 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 105 

must be by the way of a medium hypothetically 
fallible, and if the medium is ever shown to be 
infallible, it must be by the way of the recovery 
of the historic Christ. 

Suppose, now, that the historic Christ has 
been recovered, and I, for one, verily believe it, 
what follows? 

(1) This historic Christ is to us not merely a 
metaphysical one of three, he is vastly more 
than the Christ of the Trinity. 

(2) He is not merely a far-away, first century 
being, he is the risen, the ascended, the now 
regnant Christ. 

(3) He is not merely the subject of specula- 
tive thought, to be cabined, cribbed and confined 
and defined by a formidable array of infinitudes 
and syllogisms. He transcends all that. 

(4) Nor is he merely, in the eyes of the scien- 
tific method, a fact among facts, or a fossil 
among fossils, classified, labeled and shelved. 
He is infinitely more than a rare and interesting 
specimen ; and we who are reverent must rebel 
against his treatment as such, by a dwindling 
class of hyper-higher critics. 

(5) This recovered historic Christ is, and is 
seen and felt to be, *'the Word made flesh," 
whose glory is the '*glory as of the only begotten 
of the Father, full of grace and truth." He is the 
one who in his brotherhood reveals God's Fath- 
erhood, and who seizes vitally upon our human 



106 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

kinship, throwing over the lowliness of our 
humanity the halo of his divinity. 

(6) He is the constructive Christ — this recov- 
ered historic Christ. He builds around himself 
a whole world of superlative ethics and inerrant 
didactics and supernatural benefactions. And 
all these things are becoming to him, they fit 
him precisely as our own lowly words and works 
are befitting to us. Nay, having Christ we re- 
flect that such ethics, such didactics, such mira- 
cles are natural to him, and are to be expected 
of him. Then we say in the deepest soul of us, 
the record is true ; Jesus did naturally walk on 
the waves, and still the winds, and feed hungry 
thousands with bread that grew in his hands, 
and heal blind eyes, and raise the dead, and rise 
from the dead. We expect such a record of 
such a man. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John 
unite in bringing us the expected record. We 
are therefore convinced of their truthfulness, 
and thus our recovered Christ has recovered for 
us our precious records. He is the constructive 
Christ, and around him there rises the whole of 
the New Testament literature, filled with his 
thought as the eye is with light, and throbbing 
with his love as the heart throbs with blood, and 
instinct with his promised Holy Spirit as the 
human body is instinct with its own soul. 

Finally, to get back to Christ is to get back 
the Christ himself, and the literature that 



THE CRY, "BACK TO CHRIST." 107 

he inspired, and the life also, and the church 
that are the children sprung from the travail of 
his soul. 

The salvation of the present and the hope of 
the future have conditioned themselves upon 
our complete severance from dogmatism and 
traditionalism, and upon bringing the living 
Christ face to face with living men and women ; 
seating him in their homes; introducing him to 
their societies and electing him at their polling 
places. 

Our great poets are at least potential higher 
critics, and they are thorough-going Christolo- 
gists. Such souls as Whittier, Longfellow, 
Tennyson and Browning have insight. They are 
seers. They do not go limping on the crutches 
of logic. They scorn dogmatism, for it clips the 
wings of their inspiration. They find value in 
written forms only in proportion to the living 
ideals throbbing there. For them the word that 
does not inspire is not inspired, and to them that 
book only is ideal that has an ideal soul in it. 
The man in the book must be more than the 
book, and he it is who must transmute its letters 
into inspired and inspiring life. In the spirit of 
science they seize upon facts, and in the spirit of 
prophecy they make them vital, till whole val- 
leys of dry bones rise up clothed in flesh, and 
are thrust forth among men, conquering and to 
conquer. 



108 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

It is in this spirit that Whittier warns us 
**back to Christ," crying, 

*' Our Friend, our Brother and our Lord, 
What may thy service be? 
Nor name, nor form, nor written word, 
But simply following thee." 

It is in the same spirit that Tennyson, bereft 
of his friend, and travailing in sorrow, finds com- 
fort in Christ, through whom incarnate truth 
enters at last our lowly doors : 

' ' And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 
More strong than all poetic thought; 
Which he may read that binds the sheaf, 
Or builds the house, or digs the grave ..." 

It is in the same spirit that Browning finds 
hope for all the mad King Sauls of earth. 

" 'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! my flesh that 

I seek, 

In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul it shall be 

A face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me. 

Thou shalt love and be loved by forever; a Hand like this 

hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! 
Seethe Christ stand!" 

W. J. Lhamon. 



V. 

Crucial Points Concerning the 
Holy Spirit. 



FOURTH SESSION. 

E. W. Darst, of Chicago, was chairman of this session. 
The general subject was "City Evangelization." Twenty 
minute addresses were delivered by J. A. Lord, editor of the 
Christian Standard, on "The Urgency of City Evangelization;" 
"Congregational Selfishness," by George F. Hall, Decatur, 
111.; "Heroic Methods of City Evangelization," by F. G. 
Tyrrell of St. Louis; "Resources for City Evangelization," 
by G. W. Muckley, of Kansas City; the "A. C. M. S." by B. 
L. Smith, Cincinnati; "The Pastor's Relation to City Evan- 
gelization," by B. Q. Denham, of Tonawanda, N. Y. These 
addresses were all able and spirited, but most of them were 
unwritten and do not appear in this volume. 

FIFTH SESSION. 

W. T, Moore, LL. D., of Columbia, Mo., presided and made 
an introductory speech on the subject of the evening, which 
was "Literature." Prof. W. D. MacClintock, of the Univer- 
sity of •Chicago, being introduced, delivered an exceedingly 
interesting and suggestive address on "The Value of Litera- 
ture in the Training of the Teachers of Religion." He was 
followed by B. O. Ay les worth, of Denver, Colo., and Mrs. L. 
W. St. Clair, of Columbia. These addresses, with the excep- 
tion of that of Mr. Aylesworth, were unwritten, and none of 
them appear in this volume. 

SIXTH SESSION. 

The chairman of this session was W. B. Craig, Chancellor of 
Drake University, and the subject for consideration was 
"Theology." After a happy introduction, he introduced R. 
T. Mathews, of Newport, Ky., who read the paper which fol- 
lows, on "The Crucial Points Concerning the Holy Spirit." 
He was followed by F. N Calvin, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 
in a supplementary statement on the same subject. W. E. 
Ellis, of Nashville, Tenn., then reviewed the original address. 
The discussion which followed these carefully prepared papers 
was one of the most interesting of the whole Congress. 
110 



Crucial points Concerning the Roly 
Spirit 

"T BELIEVE in the Holy Spirit." This confess- 
1 ion of the great catholic creed is receiving, 
in our day, a new, notable accentuation. What is 
thought and said concerning the Holy Spirit, let 
it be observed at once, does not run into the like 
of either a fad or a hobby. The thought on the 
subject is too wide and serious for any mere 
speculator to advertise himself by novel views. 
What especially distinguishes the revival of in- 
terest in this matter, is its unpolemical, its rev- 
erent, its intensely practical spirit. We may 
notice this interest in new books that have ap- 
peared in the last decade or two. We may see 
it in the study of men of God gathered in some 
special conference. There is impressively ap- 
parent a minimum of wordy debate, and, in- 
stead, a maximum of quiet, intent thinking and 
praying over this master truth of the Word 
of God. The history of doctrine, in its long 
evolution, has never exhibited a riper time 
for a wholesome understanding of the Script- 
ure teaching concerning the Holy Spirit nor 
more pointedly shown the necessity that, if 

one essays to "bring out of his treasure things 

111 



112 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

new" on the subject, he must present them in a 
truly logical connection along with "things old." 
It must still be the old doctrine of prophets and 
apostles, if in new lights and lessons — old in 
substance, new in elicitation; old in content, 
new in application; the old doctrine always the 
test of every new light elicited and every new 
lesson applied. 

But what are the conditions and reasons that 
go to make a fresh study of the Holy Spirit so 
timely, and that call for a study positive, 
thorough, full, suited to this day and generation? 
The answer lies in the fact, speaking generally, 
that the present age is singularly open, as never 
before, to the whole revelation of God. The 
Scriptures speak significantly, "In the fullness of 
the time God sent forth his Son." It is no 
strain nor fancy to see that there is also a pro- 
found sense in which this "fullness of the time" 
repeats itself as regards the sensitiveness and 
openness of man to receive more completely this 
manifold revelation of God. Of course, there 
is no progress possible at all for man except in 
the providential leading of God. It is only in 
the light of God that man sees any light on 
anything — as the psalmist sang, "In thy light 
shall we see light." But in this age man's 
knowledge has grown "from more to more" in 
the knowledge both of the world around him and 
the world within him, in the knowledge of 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 113 

^Nature and in self-knowledge, until a remark- 
able condition has resulted in his scientific study 
of universal truth. To-day particularly, strik- 
ingly, *'in the fullness of the time," the truth of 
the universe is making itself felt on its Grodward 
side, is making itself felt on its manward side, 
in a constant meeting of the two sides in the 
consciousness of the age. 

For instance, is it an age in which Humanita- 
rianism is both a plea and cult? It is also an 
age in which Theism stirs its questions and mul- 
tiplies its books on the largest scale. But is it 
an age in which Theism is burningly discussed — 
whether there be a God, and, if there be, wheth- 
er he is knowable? It is equally an age in which 
Humanitarianism is a very gospel, with its deep 
concern for man's humanity to man. On the 
Godward side, consequently, we hear a varied 
discussion concerning Deity. There is an intense 
study or emphasis of God as a Father. There 
is, at the same time, an increasing interest in the 
fact of his historical incarnation in his Son. On 
the manward side, we see man's lordship over 
the earth more and more ambitious. There is a 
triumphant course of proud science in its mas- 
tery of the secrets of Nature. There is a steady, 
onward victory of democracy in society. 

But the full fact of this interest equally in the 

divine side of truth and in the human side, is 

not stated until it is also said that the two sides 
8 



114 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

are increasingly studied in their vital relations 
to one another. Look where one will, there is 
seen this two-fold concern in all truth to-day. 
For instance, at one extreme in the realm of 
thought, is seen a meeting point of God and 
man in Science: Science inevitably looks up 
through Nature to Nature's God, in the inquiries 
of the Agnostic as well as of the Theist. At 
the other extreme, in the realm of activity, is 
seen a meeting-point of God and man in mis- 
sions: missions have become world-wide in the 
growth of international commerce and politics. 
All between these extremes are, one after an- 
other, the meeting-points of God and man in 
the consciouness of the age. Is it literature? 
The poet's finest song is not '* of saddest 
thought," but ever of man's knowing God 
and living forever; and the novelist who por- 
trays most strikingly the tragic experiences of 
mortals, blends in singular pathos the heart's 
doubts and aspirations. Is it education? Edu- 
cation begins anew, and begins aright, as it leads 
the child to think by doing, and in all its thought 
and work to worship God. So of philanthropy, 
of socialism, of penology, or if there be any other 
concern of humankind. The meeting points of 
God and man were never more open, more rec- 
ognizable, more fraught with intensely practical 
issues, than in the thought and experience of 
the present age. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 115 

Now, it is precisely here that the Scripture 
doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit has for us 
its momentous significance. According to the 
Scriptures, the agency of the Holy Spirit in the 
salvation of men is supremely concerned with 
the incarnation of God in his Son. The Holy 
Spirit's office is exercised in the Gospel of Deity 
and Humanity perfectly united. The historical 
life of the Son of God, including his death and 
resurrection, constitutes the material for the 
work of the Holy Spirit in the progress of the 
Gospel. At every step, at every stage where the 
influence of the Holy Spirit has its normal exer- 
cise in human salvation, there the historical life 
of Jesus Christ — fact, doctrine, example, pre- 
cept, promise — is still powerful as it makes for 
the perfect union of God and man. Always, 
always, the ideal of human salvation — the 
salvation of individuals, the salvation of the 
race — is man's life sensitive to God's life at 
every point, open to God's life on every side, so 
as to be ''filled unto all the fullness of God." 
The history of redemption is that man, in the 
blood of the cross, is not only redeemed from 
the guilt and power of sin, but is redeemed so 
to live "till all attain unto the unity of the 
faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God 
unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the 
stature of the fullness of Christ." 

This agency of the Holy Spirit, with its 



116 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

abundant fruitage, is unquestionably clear in 
the course of the gospel in the apostolic minis- 
try. In the light of the apostolic ideal it be- 
came necessarily the need of the Church of 
Christ to appreciate this all-sided office of the 
Holy Spirit. The long evolution of Christian 
history has had the meaning of its travail in the 
endeavor to read all human life according to the 
life of the Son of God, and to live that life in 
the power of the Holy Spirit. From time to time 
a significant fact has not been wanting, namely, 
that there has been a study, or an emphasis, 
more or less fruitful of good, on the Holy Spirit. 
Even when this Scripture doctrine has been sub- 
jected to error or disproportion, there was still 
the sign that it was making itself felt in agita- 
tion, and was growing in the mind and heart of 
the Church for some practical good. For in- 
stance, Montanism, in the second century, may 
have been wildly notional; or Mysticism, in the 
Middle Ages, may have been one-sidedly spirit- 
ual; or Pietism, in the seventeenth century, 
may have been narrowly practical; or Wesley- 
anism, in the eighteenth century, may have been 
unduly emotional. Nevertheless all along from 
Montanus to Wesley, the doctrine has gone on 
developing itself in the apprehension of the 
Church, whether in the elimination of errors or 
in the deposit of truth, until to-day, as never 
before, God's people are ready to be filled with 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 117 

the Holy Spirit, because to-day, as never before 
since the Apostolic ministry, the life of man is 
open on all sides to the light and life of God. 

The practical good of a thorough study of the 
Holy Spirit to-day is that a clear view of this 
doctrine may help to bring together, healthily, all 
the needs of man and ail the blessings of God. 
But the focus of this benefit, as a study of the 
subject will increasingly disclose, lies just where, 
so often in the past, the most, unhealthy repre- 
sentations of Christian doctrine and Christian 
life have always had, and always will have, their 
occasion; namely, in the maladjustment of the 
divine and the human, the supernatural and the 
natural, the inward and the outward. A true 
appreciation of the blessings of the Holy Spirit 
always finally involves a healthy correspondence 
of spirit and form in Christian thought and liv- 
ing. It is an astute criticism of Faber, *'I can- 
not think of one heresy which has not come 
either from a disunion of the interior and exte- 
rior, or a dwelling on one of them to the 
neglect and depression of the other." This 
judgment can be verified enough in historical 
theology to give it the credit of a true generaliz- 
ation. Its trueness is notably plain in the views 
and exercises of certain periods as regards the 
Holy Spirit. It ought to be the hope of our day 
that all this new interest in the Holy Spirit may 
have its richest fruitage in a clearer knowledge 



118 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

of the fine, deep relations between all truth and 
all life, especially between the life of the senses 
and the life of thought, more especially still be- 
tween form and spirit as presented in the Chris- 
tian religion. If *'a disunion of the interior 
and the exterior" does not go the length of here- 
sy, it always does lead to one-sided thinking and 
dwarfed living. It is the very genius and glory 
of Christianity that it corrects, and transcends 
all violent disruption between the interior and 
the exterior in religion, and discloses the living 
relation between Nature and Spirit in the uni- 
verse. This vital, healthful comprehensiveness 
of Christianity is indeed impressively summar- 
ized in the sound words, one Body, one Spirit, 
one Hope, one Lord, one Baptism, one God and 
Father of all — a formula which will ever be the 
crucial test of all thinking and teaching on the 
Holy Spirit. 

This living theme, therefore, is altogether 
worthy of a place in the discussions of a church 
congress. The entire time of such a conference 
might be spent profitably in its consideration. 
But in the present hour it may be found wise 
and helpful to select intentionally a few aspects 
of this broad subject, and to bring these under 
critical review. Again and again in theo- 
logical study the best method is to seize on the 
crucial points of some weighty doctrine, and to 
endeavor to understand these in their truth and 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 119 

bearings, and thence to follow their logical rela- 
tions to other truth and their practical results in 
life. With this purpose before us, let us essay 
to understand some Crucial points concerning 
the Holy Spirit, as our understanding of these 
will necessarily determine our understanding of 
the rest of this important doctrine. 

1. The Personality of the Holy Spirit. 

This is a decidedly crucial point. Every stu- 
dent of the subject observes that, inevitably, in 
all consideration of the Holy Spirit, the point 
comes up whether the Holy Spirit is a self-con- 
scious person or merely an impersonal influence. 
The importance of this determination bears, it 
will be found, on some of the most practical 
matters of the gospel mission and the gospel 
life. It becomes really thus important and prac- 
tical because the full truth concerning the Holy 
Spirit affects all other truth of God's revelation 
of himself to men, and, accordingly as we grasp 
these relations, whether in incipient faith or in 
growing knowledge, will determine both our 
thought and our experience as religious beings. 

What, therefore, saith the Scripture? Let 
this be our treasure for consultation, what- 
ever our theory of revelation or inspiration. All 
who accept the Bible as a record of God's reve- 
lation of himself must come to this law and tes- 



120 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

timony, if they would have in them either a light 
for knowledge or a lam^D for duty. 

To bring to a focus at once this question of 
the personality of the Holy Spirit, let us not 
quote only some Scriptures of the A. V. or of 
the R. v., especially of the R. V., where the 
note of personality is altogether distinct in the 
English. Such a one is Rom. 8:16, ''The Spirit 
himself beareth witness with our spirit;" or 
Rom. 8:26, "The Spirit himself maketh inter- 
cession for us." We are to remember, of course, 
that dispute seemingly might be justified over 
the fact that, in these passages, the pronoun in 
the Greek is neuter gender. But let us turn to 
our Lord's farewell discourse to his disciples; 
and here again and again there is to be seen an 
indubitable emphasis of personality in the very 
Greek pronouns. "He shall teach you all 
things" (John 14:26); "He shall bear witness 
of me" (15:26); "When he, the Spirit of truth, 
is come" (16:13); "He shall glorify me" (16:14). 
Every time here the Greek pronoun is in the 
masculine gender, and, as Greek students will 
recognize, the specially emphatic pronoun, 
eheinos. 

By no law nor reason of interpretation can 
these personal pronouns be explained as only a 
personification of an impersonal influence. In 
the expression of actual personality here we can 
find nothins: inconsistent nor absurd. In the 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 121 

use of these personal terms there is no plain de- 
parture from the facts and phraseology concern- 
ing the Holy Spirit elsewhere in the Scriptures. 
Nor is there at all any vivid play and interplay 
of imaginative sights or sounds or actions, such 
as universally are attributed to matter, or even 
to spirit when personified. On the contrary, 
every sentence of our Lord concerning the office 
of the Holy Spirit is notably plain, direct, actual, 
factual, with the idea of self-conscious per- 
sonality. 

Unquestionably these Scriptures are the 
strongest proof-texts of the personality of the 
Holy Spirit. Their light irradiates the dozens 
and dozens of other Scriptures in which his per- 
sonality is taught either explicitly or implicitly. 
Such are Acts 10:20, "Separate me Barnabas 
and Saul;" 1 Cor. 2:10, "The Spirit searcheth 
all things, yea, the deep things of God;" 1 Cor. 
12:11, "The one and the same Spirit, dividing to 
each one severally even as he will;" Eph. 4:30, 
"And grieve not the Holy Spirit, in whom ye 
were sealed unto the day of redemption." But 
especially does Christ's emphasis of the Spirit's 
personality agree with those two well-known pas- 
sages in which, fully and formally, the Father 
and the Son and the Holy Spirit are associated 
in a unity of name and blessing (Matt. 28:19 
and 2 Cor. 13: 14). This striking use of the 
name of the Holy Spirit, in the baptismal for- 



122 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

inula, is undoubtedly the Hebrew style of refer- 
ring to the essential person of the Spirit. 
Equally does the supplication for the Spirit's 
blessing, in the apostolic benediction, denote his 
co-ordination with God and Christ as a person in 
the bestowal of grace. These two passages 
alone, not to refer to others, logically evince the 
the scripturalness of the old creed in its confes- 
sion of the Holy Spirit, *'who together with the 
Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.'^ 
The worship of the Holy Spirit, of course, is 
scripturally sound, not as sometimes heard in the 
cant and rant of Protestant revivals, but, as a 
true, logical inference, "together with the Father 
and the Son." Thus, by our very manner of 
sound speech, as, for instance, in the precious 
historic doxology, not being wise beyond what is 
written, we may be wise in what is written, with 
scriptural propriety and proportion. 

The scriptural estimate of the personality of 
the Holy Spirit has immensely practical conse- 
quence in religious thought and life. Let us 
consider the chief concern of this truth in the 
present day. To-day there is a burning focus of 
interest on the subject of personality — person- 
ality, both of man and of God; not only what 
personality is, but especially the practical issues 
of man's personality in relation to the personal- 
ity of God. If self-conscious determination 
constitutes the essence of personality, it is easy 



THE HOIvY SPIRIT. 123 

enough to see how all-important this fact be- 
comes in man's manifold life. 

To state the matter philosophically, man is, on 
the one hand, organically related to Nature ; on 
the other hand, he is organically related to 
Spirit. Whatever he is rationally, his thinking 
has its organ in a sensuous brain; whatever he 
is physically, he is a creature who "looks before 
and after," and "whose thoughts wander through 
eternity." Given this twofold condition, it is 
the oflSce of reason in man to realize this ideal 
unity of Nature and Spirit in the self-conscious- 
ness of personality. 

To state the matter scripturally, man is de- 
pendent on God, he is responsible to God, in 
the obedience of faith. Given this twofold con- 
dition, it is man's salvation to work out this ex- 
perience of dependence and responsibility in 
fellowship with God not far-off, in whom man 
lives and moves and has his being. 

But if self-conscious determination constitutes 
the essence of personality, then, as the whole his- 
tory of human thought abundantly proves, man 
can know, for his highest good, his self-con- 
scious, self-determinative personality, only in 
vital, organic relation to the personality of God, 
against either a drear Agnosticism or a fatalistic 
Pantheism. 

It is in relation to this supreme need of man, 
in winning his own soul, that the doctrine of the 



124 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

Holy Spirit, as self-conscious and self -determina- 
tive, is vitally important. Man, in the bondage 
and guilt of sin, all the more needs a God 
"closer than breathing, nearer than hands or 
feet." So has God come close to us, as he was 
"manifested in the flesh;" but so has he come 
closer still, as he was "justified in the Spirit." 
The splendid truth of the Bible has its climax in 
the revelation of God in Christ; but the power 
of this historic revelation henceforth has its 
course in the presence and agency of the Holy 
Spirit. But the office of the Holy Spirit, accord- 
ing to the Scriptures, is always connected not 
only with the Incarnation and Sacrifice of the 
Son of God, but especially with the relation of 
the risen Lord to the gospel of salvation. The 
gospel of salvation throbs with personality, in 
heaven and on earth. The doctrine of the Holy 
Spirit's personality, therefore, as he operates 
the historic gospel in co-operation with the 
Father and the Son, is thrice important: 

1. The Holy Spirit, as self-conscious and self- 
determinative in operating the blessing of salva- 
tion, illumines, invigorates, intensifies man's per- 
sonality in self-conscious communion with God. 
In man's dire extremity, there may be ignorant, 
inarticulate prayer; or, in view of his ideals, there 
may be noble living and fruitful service. Either 
way, and always, according to the Scriptures in 
which is set forth the most intimate influence of 



i 



THE HOIvY SPIRIT. 125 

the Holy Spirit on man's spirit, we see deep, 
rich experiences which can be fully interpreted 
only in the light of a unity of self-conscious, self- 
determinative personality between the two. 

2. The Holy Spirit, as self-conscious and self- 
determinative in operating the blessing of salva- 
tion, represents and conserves the Biblical idea 
of the one true God, and of God's relation to 
man as man's Creator and Savior. In the light 
and life of this doctrine, God is alwa3^s personal, 
not some unknowable "power not ourselves," 
and man is always personal, accountable, capa- 
ble of knowing and communing with God. 

3. The Holy Spirit, as self-conscious and self- 
determinative in operating the blessing of salva- 
tion, vitally correlates the historic gospel with 
the obedience of faith. In this vital operation 
in which man as a dual being is concerned nec- 
essarily with sense as well as spirit, the Holy 
Spirit, mediating the blessing of the historic and 
living Lord, unites truth and message, doctrine 
and life, word and sacrament, in the essential 
relation of self-conscious intelligence between 
the Spirit of God and the spirit of man. 

//. Baptism in the Holy Spirit. 

It is a matter for deep regret that this point 
of the Scripture doctrine concerning the Holy 
Spirit has been the occasion of such raging con- 



126 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

troversy. It is to be regretted all the more that 
this hot debate has been mixed up with evan- 
gelism, and has engendered both errors of doc- 
trine and errors of practice. We cannot be 
too careful in measuring every line of the 
Word of God on this point, while remem- 
bering] Trench's golden counsel to interpret 
Scripture primarily in the light of its grammar, 
and let the doctrine take care of itself. Amid 
cloudy vagaries there is so often a temptation to 
dissipate them by unconsciously explaining away 
this or that Scripture in the interest of some 
fancied harmony of truth. When we are led to 
do this, then, as Jowett says, "we had as well 
shut our grammars and dictionaries and draw 
lots for the sense." Let our study of baptism in 
the Holy Spirit be a clear, straightforward in- 
duction of the Scriptures that teach it. Then 
we shall be all the better able to refute errors of 
doctrine and cure errors of practice in our posi- 
tive elicitation of the entire truth on the subject. 
On certain aspects of this crucial point there 
have been and can be no differences of opinion. 
We all agree that, according to the Scriptures, 
it was to be a distinctive feature of the mission 
of Jesus to baptize in the Holy Spirit. We all 
agree that such a baptism occurred on the Day 
of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius. 
But then we begin to disagree on the matter; 
and the point of disagreement is whether bap- 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 127 

tism in the Spirit occurred only thus twice, or 
oftener, and especially whether it may be ex- 
pected to-day. 

Let us not pause over the Scripture in dis- 
pute — "I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all 
flesh" (Acts 2:17) — whether its meaning was 
exhausted on the Day of Pentecost and in the 
house of Cornelius. Nor let us care just now 
either to affirm or to deny that certain miracu- 
lous effects of this baptism prove necessarily 
that it was limited to these two occasions. Let 
us examine the Scriptures whether there is the 
fact or the truth further of baptism in the Holy 
Spirit, either in explicit statement or by logical 
implication. If there is, then let the doctrine 
take care of itself, while we endeavor to elicit 
its whole, exact meaning, without anxiety that 
some fancied harmony of doctrine will be sacri- 
ficed, or that certain practical dangers will be 
engendered. 

Let us accordingly examine the following 
Scriptures : 

1. 1 Cor. 12:13, "For in one Spirit were we 
all baptized into one body, whether Jews or 
Greeks; and were all made to drink of one 
Spirit." The Revised Version here is tellingly 
accurate. It states a definite fact of the past. 
It affirms that fact of a totality of persons. The 
fact is simply, unambiguously described as a 



128 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

baptism in the Spirit, and as a draught of the 
Spirit. 

2. 1 Cor. 6: 11, "And such were some of 
you : but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, 
but ye were justified in the name of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God." It 
is rather strange that this explicit Scripture has 
been neglected in the big controversy on this 
subject. But the exact rendering of the Re- 
vised Version now brings it forward as an indis- 
putable proof-text of baptism in the Spirit. 
Paul is revealing the secret of the marvelous 
change for good in the lives of his Corinthian 
converts. They *'were washed," that is, bap- 
tized, not only baptized but ''sanctified," not 
only "sanctified" but "justified," all "in the 
name of the Lord Jesus Christ," and baptized, 
sanctified, justified, "in the Spirit of our God." 
The glowing affirmations of their conversion 
hang together in a vital connection with the 
Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. 

3. Titus 3: 5, 6, "Not by works done in right- 
eousness, which we did ourselves, but according 
to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of 
regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 
which he poured out upon us richly, through 
Jesus Christ our Savior." Here again the Re- 
vised Version is priceless, with its accurate, del- 
icate revisions. In their light the logical pro- 
priety, if not necessity, of inferring here also 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 129 

baptism in the Holy Spirit, stands out all the 
clearer. "Which he poured out upon us richly" 
— these words so tally with Acts 2: 17, "I will 
pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh," that, 
along with the explicit wording of 1 Cor. 12: 13 
and 6: 11, just considered, they may be regarded 
not only a literary felicity, but a doctrinal land- 
mark concerning baptism in the Holy Spirit. 

4. Eph. 5: 18, "And be not drunken with 
wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the 
Spirit." So also this Scripture. It is the doc- 
trine of a complete occupancy of life with the 
Holy Spirit. The very contrast with the influ- 
ence of wine, to denote the abundant, pervasive 
influence of the Holy Spirit, logically justifies 
the conception as baptism in the Spirit, both 
from a literary as well as from a doctrinal point 
of view. 

5. John 7: 38, 39, "He that believeth on me, 
as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall 
flow rivers of living water. But this spake he 
of the Spirit which they that believed on him 
were to receive: for the Spirit was not yet 
given; because Jesus was not yet glorified." 
The figure impressively exhibits the overflowing 
blessing of the Holy Spirit — flowing into the 
believer and filling him, flowing out of him and 
copiously refreshing others. To describe the 
blessing as baptism in the Spirit, is altogether 
true and accurate. 



130 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

6, Eph. 3: 14-19, 'Tor this cause I bow my 
knees unto the Father, from whom every family 
in heaven and on earth is named, that he would 
grant you, according to the riches of his glory, 
that ye may be strengthened with power through 
his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may 
dwell in your hearts through faith ; to the end 
that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may 
be strong to apprehend with all the saints what 
is the breadth and length and height and depth, 
and to know the love of Christ which passeth 
knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the 
fullness of God." All of divine revelation, all 
of human salvation, are in this sublime prayer. 
The deepest capacities of the Christian heart 
are searched; his widest experiences are in- 
cluded; his loftiest attainments are idealized. 
Strength, faith, love, knowledge in the unity of 
man's perfect character, as this is perfected and 
filled with the riches of the glory of the triune 
God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — all, all are 
here. Again the Holy Spirit and the glorified 
Christ are pictured together. The certainty of 
the historic faith, the assurance of the personal 
experience — these appear in their healthy unity ; 
and the Spirit's office in the disciple, through 
the process of salvation in its vital unity of 
light and love, is ever filling the disciple *'unto 
all the fullness of God." Nothing short of bap- 
tism in the Holy Spirit, fact and figure, can rep- 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 131 

resent the marvelous blessing. The crucial 
point, therefore, of baptism in the Holy Spirit, 
certainly simplifies itself in view of these six 
Scriptures. In these, baptism in the Spirit is 
taught — in the first two passages, explicitly; in 
the other four, implicitly. If we confined our 
study to 1 Cor. 12: 13 and 6: 11, there would 
confront us a plain statement of baptism in the 
Spirit, beyond the day of Pentecost, beyond the 
house of Cornelius. Let us not straightway 
deny this explicit doctrine, or begin to explain it 
away in answer to some supposed requirement 
of interpretation. The doctrine can take care 
of itself against every difficulty of interpreta- 
tion, whether you and I are successful in solving 
the difficulty or not. The doctrine can take care 
of itself against every danger of practice, 
whether you and I are wise in avoiding the 
danger or not. "We can do nothing against the 
truth, but for the truth," says Paul, in his splen- 
did hyperbole. You and I may lose much good, 
and may do much harm by our wrong teaching 
of truth and our >vrong application of it; but 
the truth itself always at last prevails over our 
misteaching and malpractice. The Scriptures 
emphatically teach baptism in the Holy Spirit 
beyond the day of Pentecost, beyond the house 
of Cornelius. Let us hear it, and receive it, 
and understand it, not deny it nor explain it 
away, but make the most of it for our practical 



132 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

good, while we learn to explode errors, and solve 
difficulties, and avoid dangers, and cure mis- 
chievous waj^s of evangelism. 

For instance, is it difficult to understand why 
miraculous effects do not follow every baptism 
in the Spirit? There need be no difficulty here. 
In the light of the Scriptures, it is plain enough 
that miracles were an incidental or temporary, 
not a necessary nor permanent accompaniment 
of baptism in the Spirit. Or, is there a ques- 
tion, what, then, about the *'one baptism" of 
Eph. 4: 6? — which is it, and how then more than 
one? There need be no difficulty here. The 
*'one baptism" of Eph. 4: 6 is the "one bap- 
tism" of the Grreat Commission. Indeed, it is 
*'one baptism" in 1 Cor. 12: 13 and 6: 11. But 
the "one baptism" in water is none the less, 
when rightly received, baptism in the Spirit. 
The abundant presence of the Holy Spirit does 
not annul the baptism in water. Neither bap- 
tism in the Spirit, nor baptism in sorrow, nor 
baptism in fire, which the Scriptures also teach, 
evacuates the "one baptism" in water of its 
meaning of unity. It is not "one baptism" as 
counting times nor excluding other exercises 
termed baptism, but "one baptism" in its richly 
unifying purposes and effects in evangelism. 
The "one baptism" in water does not lose its 
unity of meaning and phrase because it is also a 
baptism in the Spirit, or because there may be 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 133 

also a baptism in sorrow, or a baptism in fire, or 
a baptism in the Spirit. 

The really serious concern about baptism in 
the Spirit is a practical one. The doctrine has 
suffered caricature and perversion in evangelism. 
Baptism in the Holy Spirit has been looked at in 
an abstract, isolated way. Sinners have been 
exhorted to pray for and expect it, in passiv^e 
waiting, wholly aside from obedience to the gos- 
pel. Consequently the promise of salvation has 
got mixed up with how one feels, and certain 
electric sensations have been described as the 
sign of pardon and acceptance with God. But 
this error and malpractice are not to be cured 
by false exegesis and false logic. The sover- 
eignty of the Holy Spirit in evangelism must be 
duly recognized. If the gospel, with its facts, 
its precepts, its promises, is not to be ignored 
when the Holy Spirit is in view, neither are the 
presence and agency of the Holy Spirit to be 
ignored as the gospel is in progress. We are to 
cure or prevent the extravagances of revivalism, 
not by explaining away nor ignoring a present 
baptism in the Spirit, but by preaching all the 
more insistently the gospel of grace, instructing 
and exhorting sinners to obey it, while we also 
are careful to explain the rich, varied meaning 
of baptism in the Spirit, and especially to cor- 
relate it soundly with the message of faith and 
the obedience of faith. 



134 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

In a positive light, therefore, we should intel- 
ligently and devoutly make all that the Word of 
God so obviously makes of baptism in the Holy 
Spirit. Let us not pervert the truth in error or 
malpractice. Let us not make a hobby of the 
truth and ride it in the pride of self-conceit and 
self-deceit. How are we finally to regard it 
aright in the light of the Word of God? What 
is its whole secret, in view of which Ave may see 
its meaning at once in summary and detail? 

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a luminous figure 
of speech, to denote the superabundant in-fluence of 
the Holy Spirit in salvation. 

It is a figure at once simple and rich. It is a 
simple figure of a rich fact. It is a figure, not 
technical, but poetical; not abstract, but vital — 
because the fact is illimitable and immeasurable. 
It is a free and fluent figure of speech, to picture 
the suberabundant influence of the Holy Spirit, 
whether in revelation, or regeneration, or re- 
newal, or enduement, or administration. It is 
pre-eminently the figure to describe this super- 
abundant influence of the Holy Spirit at any or 
every stage of his office in man's salvation. 

When a pagan fell down in the presence of the 
Corinthian Church, and worshiped God, declar- 
ing, *'God is among you, indeed," such over- 
whelming conviction may well be called bajDtism 
in the Holy Spirit. When the humble con- 



THE HOIvY SPIRIT. 135 

fessor, convicted of sin and believing in his 
heart on Jesus, says with the mouth from the 
heart, * 'Jesus is Lord," and says it, as Paul 
teaches it can be said, only '*in the Holy Spirit," 
such heartfelt confession may be fittingly pic- 
tured as baptism in the Holy Spirit. When the 
candidate, in the water of the *'one baptism," a 
penitent believer, is baptized "into the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit," this obedience of faith recalls at once 
the very verse of Scripture, ''In one Spirit were 
we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or 
Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all 
made to drink of one Spirit." Nay, this climax 
of obedience in the "one baptism," even as it 
sums up and consummates all faith and blessing 
going before, at once becomes the type, the 
ideal, the secret of all faith and blessing coming 
after; and the blessing of the Holy Spirit re- 
ceived there, scripturally termed baptism in the 
Holy Spirit, may be renewed daily in prayer and 
service, if we have the faith to seek more and 
more the fullness of the gift of the Holy Spirit, 
edifyingly conceived and expressed as baptism in 
the Holy Spirit. Nay, further, this measureless 
presence of the Holy Spirit, of whose fullness 
one begins to receive in regeneration^ of whose 
fullness one continues to receive in reneival — the 
measure of one's faith, the measure of one's 
reception — one receives more capaciously still in 



136 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

enduement, as one not only seeks it for some un- 
selfish service of others, but seeks it especially 
along with other servants of Christ in the mani- 
fold administration of the offices and gifts of 
the body of Christ. 

Such, according to the Scriptures, is the mean- 
ing, the large meaning, of baptism in the Spirit — 
his measureless presence in his operation of sal- 
vation. It is not an exceptional nor transient 
influence for just one end. It is not even a reg- 
ular, permanent influence just for one effect. 
As it is measureless, so is it not to be singled out, 
isolated, identified with only a particular step or 
stage of salvation. On the other hand, it is 
concurrent with the whole of salvation — a meas- 
ureless presence of the Spirit himself in operat- 
ing salvation, received by man more and more 
fully in an increasing faith. It may have a crisis 
or an emphasis in one's experience; still it is 
ceaseless and measureless in operation, with 
manifold purposes and results in the process of 
one's salvation. 

III. Method of the Holy Spirit's Operation in 
Salvation. 

The debate over baptism in the Holy Spirit 
has been only a part of the larger controversy 
on the method of the Holy Spirit's operation in 
salvation. Let no one say that this is a needless 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 137 

subject for study. It is a decidedly crucial point 
for more than one reason. Our view of the 
method of the Holy Spirit's operation in salva- 
tion will not only affect our evangelism, but it will 
none the less certainly determine the temper and 
tone of our spiritual life. If we have not a 
scriptural understanding of the matter, we shall 
find ourselves either absorbed morbidly in 
thought and talk about the Holy Spirit, or 
plainly silent in either testimony or prayer. The 
full appreciation of the Scripture concerning 
the Holy Spirit especially requires us to correlate 
soundly his person with his office in man's salva- 
tion. On this critical point concerning the Holy 
Spirit's method in operating human salvation, 
there has been an oscillation between two errors. 
1. There is the error of mysticism. It has 
shown itself in various phases. Sometimes it 
has been a habit of the devotee to disregard the 
senses, even to deny any reality to what is seen 
and heard, to become wholly absorbed in what 
the mystic calls direct visions of God and direct 
communications with him. Historically, it has 
subserved good in counteracting barren dogmas, 
burdensome rites, scandalous immoralities. In 
certain provincial circuits, it has uttered ex- 
treme language about the condition of the sin- 
ner. It has represented him as "dead in tres- 
passes and in sins" as Lazarus was in the grave. 
It has disowned Sunday-schools or missionary 



138 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

societies, or any agency concerned with teaching 
the Bible to children or preaching the gospel 
to the whole creation. It has notably voiced 
such phrases as *'only a book-religion," '*mere 
historical gospel," "the word a dead letter." 
It has affected to commune with God, or to 
receive salvation, in what it calls the direct, 
immediate operation of the Spirit, separate and 
apart from "the word of the truth of the gos- 
pel," the latter thus far needless or impotent. 

2. There is the error of rationalism. It has 
shown itself in various phases. Sometimes it 
has been a habit of the skeptic to disregard a 
supernatural revelation, even to deny the need 
of a voice from heaven or a vision in a cloud, to 
judge one's self able, in independent exercises 
of reason, to know Deity and duty and immor- 
tality, and self-sufficient in working out one's 
own salvation and destiny. Historically, it has 
subserved good in counteracting tyrannous creeds 
and exclusive hierarchies. In certain provincial 
circuits it has uttered extreme language about 
the condition of the sinner. It has represented 
him as naturally able to hear and receive salva- 
tion without any need of an initiative influence 
of God in the ability. It has magnified human 
agencies, schools, societies, services, programmes, 
ways, means, personalties, individualities, meth- 
ods of work and mannerisms of the worker. Its 
utterances are on record, either in print or in 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 139 

memory, such as, "The Holy Spirit has finished 
his work in inspiring the apostles and leading 
them into all truth; and now we must use sim- 
ply moral suasion to induce sinners to obey the 
gospel." Indeed, there have been more extreme 
utterances in a more colloquial style. "The 
New Testament is all the Holy Spirit there is to- 
day;" "The Spirit has left a will of blessing for 
sinners; it is on file in the clerk's oflice in Jeru- 
salem, where they can go and read and comply 
with its conditions and enjoy its privileges." 
Finally, to rebut the mystical notion that the 
Spirit operates in salvation separately and apart 
from the Word of Truth, it has affirmed the mis- 
leading negation that the Spirit operates to these 
ends only through the Word. 

Now, it is soundly scriptural to confute th^ 
error of mysticism by appealing to Scripture 
upon Scripture that teaches the operation of the 
Holy Spirit in salvation through "the word of 
the truth of the gospel." When sinners are left 
in sad suspense for weeks and months concern- 
ing salvation, it is a great privilege to show them 
the Scriptures that teach the agency of the 
Spirit in closest union with Word and Gospel — 
enlightened by the Word (Psa. 119: 130), begot- 
ten through the Word (1 Pet. 1: 23-25), sancti- 
fied by the Word (John 17: 17), edified by the 
Word (Acts 20: 32). It can be proved incon- 
testably that the salvation of sinners, in the 



140 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

apostolic ministry, was too constantly exhibited 
in certain intimate connection of the Holy Spirit 
with "the word of the truth of the gospel" to 
justify any procedure that practically silences or 
muffles the voice of the gospel, with its facts to 
be believed, its precepts to be obeyed, its prom- 
ises to be enjoyed. It is a momentous triumph 
of evangelism for one to be able to preach the 
gospel in this way, knowing the Scriptures and 
the power of God. 

But while we make void this error of mysti- 
cism, we cannot be too careful against establish- 
ing the error of rationalism, as regards the 
method of the Holy Spirit's operation in salva- 
tion. The crucial point, where this error may 
get a foothold in our understanding, may be ex- 
hibited in one's habitual conception of the rela- 
tion of the Holy Spirit's presence to his method 
in operating salvation. Is it simply a presence 
of record in the Scriptures, true and intelligible 
in the narration, but a record, a memory, a tra- 
dition of the past only, good for argument and 
proof of facts, but a history only? or is it still 
a living force of itself, as live and real as when 
thousands of sinners, pierced to the heart in 
what they heard, cried out for relief? Is it a 
presence in the gospel like water gathered in a 
cistern, or like water flowing out of a fountain? 
Is it a presence in the Word like the echoes of a 
voice, echoes only, where the original speaker 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 141 

not only is silent, but must let the word go forth 
out of his mouth, himself henceforth both inac- 
tive and ignorant whether the word shall not 
return unto him void, or accomplish that which 
he pleases, or shall prosper in the thing whereto 
he sent it? Is it a presence in the truth simply 
like the presence of a human spirit, where the 
teacher of a truth may be wholly unconscious of 
the way and struggle of the truth he has taught, 
as it runs in noontide glory or is darkened in 
midnight ages of error, as it is crushed to earth 
or arises again in God's eternal years? Critic- 
ally, crucially, this is the point — is the presence 
of the Holy Spirit, in his scriptural office of 
operating salvation, historical only, or eternal; 
traditional merely, or continuous; unconsciously 
passive, or consciously active; a mechanical iso- 
lation from the person of the Spirit, or a dyna- 
mic influence forever in the purposes and energies 
of his being? 

The crucial point, therefore, for both thought 
and life, is to conceive and cherish aright, script- 
urally, the presence of the Holy Spirit himself in 
relation to his method of operating salvation. 
The very foundation of this sound, scriptural 
conception is the fact that his presence is eter- 
nal, continuous, consciously active, a ceaseless, 
potent influence in Christian doctrine and Chris- 
tian life. Holding fast this conception, we are 



142 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

then prepared to correlate his presence with his 
method in operating salvation. 

Here again we may begin to understand this 
relation in view of a familiar controversy on the 
subject. It has often been a debate whether the 
Holy Spirit, in his office of conversion and sanc- 
tification, operates on the human soul "indi- 
rectly" or "directly," "mediately" or "imme- 
diately," only through the Word or separately 
and apart from the Word. There could not be 
a more needless debate in religious matters. 
It is possible at all only as each opponent en- 
deavors to express absolutely, in the language of 
the senses, what pertains to the sphere and 
activity of spirit. A full examination of the 
Scripture doctrine will show that such terms as 
"mediately" or "immediately," applied to the 
Holy Spirit's office in salvation, cannot be used 
in a rigid, exclusive sense of di:fference. Rather, 
it will be seen that the Scriptures teach a neces- 
sary relation of the Spirit's person to the 
Spirit's office in man's salvation, so that the 
terms "mediately" or "immediately" must find, 
not contrariety, but harmony of meaning as re- 
gards the Spirit's operation. 

The Scripture doctrine, therefore, concerning 
the Holy Spirit, again and again represents and 
emphases the person of the Spirit as truth. In 
the words of Jesus (John 14:17, 15:26, 16:13), 
notably, he is "the Spirit of truth." According 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 143 

to the Apostle John, to quote the exact language 
of the Revised Version, *'The Spirit is the 
truth" (1 John 5:8). Words cannot more plain- 
ly teach the essential unity of the Spirit's per- 
son and the Spirit's office. Word's cannot 
more plainly teach that the office of the Spirit 
inheres in and grows out of his very nature as 
truth. 

Particularly must we appreciate this delicate 
Scripture use of "truth" in relation to the two 
other Scripture terms, "word" and "gospel." 
Evidently Truth is the more comprehensive, 
more appropriate term to characterize the person 
of the Spirit. Truth includes Gospel, which ex- 
presses the good news of salvation. Truth in- 
cludes Word, which denotes the revelation and 
record of the will of God in the Bible. But 
Truth includes also the revelation of God in 
the starry heavens above and in the moral law 
within, in each hint of nature and in the still, 
small voice of conscience. Truth, more than 
Gospel or Word, is a term of Spirit, the very 
term to express the profound unity of the Holy 
Spirit's person and office in salvation — "The 
Spirit is the truth." 

Healthily, beautifully, impressively indeed, do 
the Scriptures set forth this vital relation of the 
Spirit himself to his office. They say significant- 
ly, not responsible for the errors of mysticism, 
"Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither 



144 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up 
into heaven, thou art there. If I makp my bed 
in Sheol, behold, thou art there. If I take the 
wings of the morning, and dwell in the utter- 
most parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand 
lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me" (Psa. 
139:7-10). They say significantly, not responsi- 
ble for the errors of rationalism, "This is he 
that came by water and blood, even Jesus 
Christ; not in the water only, but in the water 
and in the blood. And it is the Spirit that bear- 
eth witness, because the Spirit is the truth" (1 
John 5:6, 7). Thus, according to the Script- 
ures, the Spirit of God is everywhere — in pagan 
twilights, in Jewish moonlights, in Christian 
sunlights. He understands man's thoughts, he 
searches out man's paths, he besets man behind 
and before : he strives with man according to 
truth, in Nature, or Law, or Gospel. Thus, ac- 
cording to the Scriptures, his presence in pagan 
twilights of conscience, or in Jewish moonlights 
of psalm and prophecy, becomes a larger, a fuller, 
a measureless presence in the sunlight of the 
Gospel of the Son of God's love. Here, most 
significantly of all, his presence becomes power 
in vital relation to the Incarnation, the Recon- 
ciliation, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. His 
presence, eternal, continuous, potent, as exer- 
cised in his office, is truly described as "the law 
of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." 



THE HOivY Spirit. 145 

To understand soundly, therefore, the Holy 
Spirit's method in operating salvation, to guard 
against both mysticism and rationalism, we must 
be careful to hold together his person and his 
office in the light of the Scripture unity — "The 
Spirit is the truth." The trite phrases of debate, 
"direct operation," or "indirect operation," 
"mediate presence" or "immediate presence," 
used as exclusive definitions, cannot scripturally 
represent the Holy Spirit's presence and agency 
in salvation. Equally in the light of the Script- 
ures and in the light of the philosophy of spirit, 
the Holy Spirit's presence and operation in sal- 
vation are at once immediate and mediate — at 
one and the same time, mediate and immediate. 

Stated scripturally, the presence of the Holy 
Spirit, self-conscious, self-determinative, in oper- 
ating salvation, is immediately related to "the 
word of the truth of the gospel." The imme- 
diacy of the Spirit's presence and power is in 
and through "the word of the truth of the gos- 
pel." His mediate operation through "the word 
of the truth of the gospel" involves necessarily his 
immediate presence in "the word of the truth 
of the gospel." In one sentence, the full rea- 
son of the Holy Spirit's immediate presence 
vitally in his mediate operation, as "the law of 
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," making men 
free from the law of sin and death, is that it is 

the presence of "the Spirit of life" who, in 
10 



146 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

presence and operation, *'is the truth" (Rom. 
8:2; IJohn 5:6). 

Stated philosophically, the presence of the 
Spirit, anywhere, everywhere, is essentially a 
presence of intelligence or truth, and necessa- 
rily a presence of law. His essence is light, his 
nature is intelligence, his manifestation is truth, 
his operation is law. So is his presence imme- 
diately related to all the reason and thought of 
the universe, whether of mind infinite or mind 
finite. It is none the less a true immediacy of 
presence because of it may be truly predicated a 
mediacy of relation or operation. The mediacy 
of his operation is not to be conceived nor cher- 
ished, to the exclusion of the immediacy of his 
presence. His immediate presence and his 
mediate operation bear to one another an ener- 
getic relation. The mediacy of his operation is 
in and of the immediacy of his presence ; the 
immediacy of his presence fills and feeds the 
mediacy of his operation. His mediate opera- 
tion flows from his immediate presence; his im- 
mediate presence becomes the law of his mediate 
operation. In one sentence, the mediacy of the 
Spirit is really his immediacy viewed according 
to his person — his essence light, his nature intel- 
ligence, his manifestation truth, his operation 
law — as the glory of the sun is beheld in each 
small, far-off ray, each small, far-off ray the 
mediation for human, finite eyes, of the glory 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 147 

which nevertheless outshines and passes beyond 
the horizon of our wondering gaze. 

Such are the crucial points concerning the 
Holy Spirit — the personality of the Spirit, bap- 
tism in the Spirit, the method of the Spirit's 
operation in salvation. The Holy Spirit is not 
an impersonal influence, but a person self-con- 
scious and self-determinative. His presence in 
the Christian economy is baptismal in measure 
and power. His operation of human salvation, 
the office of self-conscious, self-determinative 
Spirit, measureless in his presence, is in organic 
unity with his nature as *'the truth," and thus 
becomes *'the law of the Spirit of life in Christ 
Jesus." 

In view of these conclusions of this essay on 
the Holy Spirit, two cardinal lessons may be 
drawn. 

1. The sound interpretation of the person 
and office of the Holy Spirit in salvation will 
exert both an enlightening and a steadying influ- 
ence in the progress of the Kingdom of God in 
this age. These meeting points of God and man 
in the consciousness of this age — we cannot be 
too wise nor diligent in knowing them and cor- 
relating them for the good of all. The influ- 
ence of the Holy Spirit in his measureless pres- 
ence, scripturally understood and cherished, will 
enable us to live by all sides of our being, in the 
healthy unity of Nature and Spirit. Right there 



148 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

the Holy Spirit concentrates his operation, 
against frigid deism, against blincl pantheism, 
against airy mysticism, against vapid rationalism. 
His one great aim is to bring the life of Jesus 
Christ and the life of man into the perfect union 
of body and soul. If he bears witness with our 
spirit that we are children of God, he also makes 
the body a temple for his presence. The two 
sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper, are 
the symbols of the Holy Spirit's operation of 
joining man in holy fellowship with the risen 
Lord. All life thence becomes sacramental 
under the influence of such a presence. Fire- 
side and shop and market and field and 
thoroughfare, the merchant's counter and the 
student's desk, the private closet and the public 
sanctuary, all have in them the promise and 
potency of the Holy Spirit's presence. So shall 
we avoid Romish sacerdotalism; so shall we 
avoid Protestant provincialism. So in this age 
of expansion of environment and thought, when 
Nature reveals her subtlest forces, when society 
becomes more intensely self-conscious with the 
ideas of liberty, fraternity, equality, shall we be 
wise and strong, under the influence of the Holy 
Spirit, to reproduce the life of the Son of God 
"that died, yea, rather that was raised from the 
dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also 
maketh intercession for us." 

2. The sound interpretation of the person 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 149 

and office of the Holy Spirit in salvation should 
test us whether we are making the most of his 
blessing practically for our individual good. 
There is not a duty nor a promise, not an experi- 
ence nor a blessing, of the Christian life, but, 
according to the Scriptures, is vitally connected 
with the presence of the Holy Spirit. Notably 
is his presence expressed or implied in the hid- 
den motives and woful needs of human life. 
"Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the 
Holy Spirit?" (Acts 5:3); "Grieve not the Holy 
Spirit" (Eph. 4:30); "We know not how to 
pray as we ought; but the Holy Spirit himself 
maketh intercession for us with groanings which 
cannot be uttered" (Rom. 8: 26). These Script- 
ures unquestionably set forth the presence and 
operation of the Holy Spirit, self-conscious and 
self-determinative, with whom we have to do. 
The practical question then is, as we read the 
doctrine, as we interpret the doctrine, does the 
doctrine have its sound influence in all our 
thinking and living? One test alone is decisive. 
Not slighting either Word or Sacrament, do we 
find ourselves not indifferent nor silent concern- 
ing the Holy Spirit himself? As we seek to live 
in the Spirit, are we all the better enabled to 
realize his blessing because we correlate soundly 
his person and his office, and speak of him freely 
according to his law and testimony? 
Let the memorable apostolic exhortation 



150 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

(Eph. 4: 3-6) be the fitting summary of this 
essay. It is the classic Scripture on the sub- 
ject, as it emphasizes "the unity of the Spirit." 
That rich phrase, "the unity of the Spirit," sig- 
nificantly contains all of the Holy Spirit's person 
and his manifold operation in salvation. "Giv- 
ing all diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit 
in the bond of peace. One Body and one Spirit, 
even as ye were called in one Hope of your call- 
ing: one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God 
and Father of all, Avho is over all, and through 
all, and in all." 

R. T. Mathews. 



Crucial points Concerning tbc Roly 
Spirit'^ — 3 Review. 

THE essay is a vigorous treatment of this very 
interesting subject. I commend highly the 
spirit of the paper, and ask for it a most 
thoughtful reading, for it is the product of a 
scholarly mind on this vitally important theme. 
The writer is an independent thinker, fearless in 
expressing himself, but is no dogmatist. He has 
boldly written what he has said in the search for 
truth, in the conscientious belief that he is right. 
From investigation we have nothing to fear. 
Truth is the end we seek. Let it be had at any 
cost. A more difficult subject is not presented 
in holy writ, nor is there one more in need of 
thorough investigation and profound handling. 
The subject is timely, the paper well written, its 
spirit commendable. In this, as in all questions, 
let us be sure that our conclusions have the sanc- 
tion of the Scriptures. The Word of God is our 
final court of appeal on all subjects pertaining 
to life and salvation. Beyond its teaching we 
dare not go. From its pages much may yet re- 
main to be learned. The Bible is our pillar of 
cloud by day, our pillar of fire by night. Let 

us not seek to be wise above what is written. It 

151 



152 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

is a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our 
path. It reveals all we know of God and Christ 
and the Holy Spirit. Therefore our investiga- 
tion of this subject must be scriptural iu order 
to be sound. If not scriptural, it will be all 
sound and no sense. 

The essayist finds three "crucial points" in 
the subject. 

1 . The Personality of the Holy Spirit. 

This is a "crucial point." We have heard so 
much about the influence of the Holy Spirit that 
we are apt to forget that he is actually a person. 
There is a tendency to regard the Holy Spirit as 
an emanation flowing from the Father or the 
Son, and not to think of him as a distinct per- 
sonality. It is easy to think of the Father as a 
person, and it is no hard matter to look upon 
the Son as a person. The names "Father" and 
"Son," are associated in our minds with actual, 
living persons. But when we come to deal with 
the Holy Spirit we find his acts are so separated 
from everything that appeals to sense, and so 
much that is mysterious has been attributed to 
him, and the terms in which his operations have 
been expressed are so unintelligible, that it is 
difficult indeed to conceive of him as a person. 
We need to strip this subject of its mystical 
aspect as far as we can, and look at it in the 
light of reason and Scripture teaching, and not 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 153 

lose ourselves in the fog in which the subject has 
been shrouded by various writers and speakers. 
The Holy Spirit is not simply an influence, or an 
emanation, or a something flowing from the 
Father, but is as much an actual person as either 
the Father or the Son. The two Scriptures, the 
apostolic benediction and the baptismal formu- 
la, quoted and commented upon by the essayist, 
forcefully teach his personality. If the Holy 
Spirit were only an influence, why mention him 
in relations so important? Then we find the 
Holy Spirit making his appearance on the day 
of Pentecost and at the baptismal waters when 
Jesus was baptized. Cloven tongues as of fire 
is the manifestation of him on one occasion, on 
the other he was seen as a dove descending and 
lighting upon Jesus. An emanation simply, or 
an influence, could not make an appearance. 
We cannot see an influence, nor an emanation, 
nor an attribute. The fact of an appearance to 
mortal eyes and an appeal to mortal sense indi- 
cates personality. We find very substantial evi- 
dence of his personality also in the fact that the 
attributes or characteristics of a person are 
ascribed to him. In 1 Cor. 2: 11, '*For who 
among men knoweth the things of a man, save 
the spirit of the man, which is in him? even so 
the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit 
of God." Here the Holy Spirit is represented 
as understanding and knowing. Is it possible 



154 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

for a mere influence or emanation to have 
knowledge and understanding? Are not these 
attributed to persons only? And in 1 Cor. 12: 
11, we find the power to will ascribed to the 
Spirit. "But all these worketh the one and the 
same Spirit, dividing to each one severally even 
as he will." Knowledge, understanding, will, 
are not attributed to an influence, but belong to 
persons. We find, too, that sensations are 
ascribed to the Holy Spirit. In Eph. 4:30, 
"Grieve not the Holy Spirit." Acts 7:15, "Ye 
do always resist the Holy Spirit." Acts 5:9, 
"Ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of 
the Lord." It cannot be possible that an eman- 
ation or an influence can be grieved, tempted, 
resisted. These attributes belong to persons 
only. The Holy Spirit is also represented as an 
actor. In Gen. 1:2, "The Spirit of God moved 
upon the face of the waters." The germs of 
life, from which all being sprang, were implanted 
by him. Thus he is seen to be the giver of both 
physical and spiritual life. Only the possessor 
can be the life-giver. 

Thus it will be seen that we heartily concur 
with the essayist as to the personality of the 
Holy Spirit, but must dissent from his conclu- 
sions that the Holy Spirit is therefore to be wor- 
shiped. This conclusion is unscriptural. 



THE HOIvY SPIRIT. 155 

2. Baptism in the Holy Spirit. 

At this point our lines of thought diverge, and 
from his conclusions we are compelled to dis- 
sent. I agree with the essayist that "it is a mat- 
ter for deep regret that this point of the 
Scripture doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit 
has been the occasion of such raging controver- 
sy." I also believe that "we cannot be too care- 
ful in measuring every line of the Word of God 
on this point," leaving "the doctrine to take 
care of itself," and not to give way to the 
"temptation to dissipate by unconsciously ex- 
plaining away this or that Scripture in the inter- 
est of some fancied harmony of truth." But 
may I modestly suggest that the essayist has 
fallen into the very error against which he warns 
us? And this arises from a failure to keep 
clearly in mind the differences in the meaning 
attached in the Scriptures to the various expres- 
sions concerning the office and work of the Holy 
Spirit. "There are diversities of gifts, but the 
same Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:4). And "He divides 
to every man severally as he will" (1 Cor. 12: 
11). He has also a Scripture expression to de- 
fine each special office. Some of these mani- 
festations are limited in their bestowment to 
certain periods of time and for certain specific 
ends. "Whether there be prophecies they shall 
be done away, whether there be tongues they 
shall cease, whether there be knowledge it shall 



156 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

be done away" (1 Cor. 13:8), because the end 
for which they were given is reached. When the 
work is finished for which the special endow- 
ment was made, the promise ceases to be in 
force. 

The methods of his manifestations may be 
different at different times, according to the 
character of the work and the conditions under 
which it is to be accomplished. That particular 
manifestation of the Holy Spirit, known in the 
New Testament as "baptism in the Holy Spirit," 
had its origin, in so far as our knowledge ex- 
tends, on the day of Pentecost. The specific 
power which came with this manifestation of the 
Spirit, was the power to testify miraculously 
with tongues in order to confirm the truthfulness 
of the speaker and the divine origin of the mes- 
sage. "Baptism in the Holy Spirit " is a tech- 
nical expression used in the New Testament only 
in connection with the power to witness miracu- 
lously, as for instance, by speaking with tongues, 
and hence is specific in meaning, and if we to- 
day read it into our vocabulary as descriptive of 
the Spirit's work now, we must give to it a dif- 
ferent meaning from that given it in the New 
Testament, since no one claims now to be able to 
speak with tongues, or to attest his message by 
miracle. To say that this "is an incidental or 
temporary, not a necessary nor permanent accom- 
paniment of baptism in the Spirit," is to assume 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 157 

the very point at issue. It merely expresses the 
essayist's own opinion. It has not the force of 
an argument. In a careful study of the Script- 
ures concerning the Holy Spirit, we find that his 
permanent work is twofold, — that of Comforter 
to the child of God, and that of Keprover to the 
alien. We find, also, that there is a twofold 
manifestation of the Spirit by which to express 
his temporary work, that is, "baptism in the 
Spirit" and the "miraculous gifts of the Spirit." 
These are all gifts of the Spirit for different 
purposes. The gift of the Holy Spirit as a Com- 
forter is promised to all who believe and obey 
the gospel. The "gifts of the Spirit," that is, 
miraculous gifts, is also specific, and means a 
power of the Spirit conferred through the special 
agency of the apostles, the act of bestowment 
being the laying on of the apostles' hands. (Acts 
8: 14-17). Philip, the evangelist, could lead the 
Samaritans to Christ and baptize them into 
Christ, whereupon they received "the gift of the 
Holy Spirit." But the presence of an apostle is 
needed to impart the miraculous gifts of the 
Spirit. So Peter and John came down from 
Jerusalem for that purpose. There is, then, no 
connection between the "one baptism" of the 
great commission and the miraculous gifts of the 
Spirit, which would lead us to conclude that the 
latter always follows the former. Men may serve 
Christ perfectly without these gifts. Miraculous 



158 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

endowments were divine provisions for tempo- 
rary exigencies in the development of the 
church. Since they were given only by the lay- 
ing on of the apostles' hands it is plain that we 
cannot claim his presence now in this extraord- 
inary way. There are four instances in the New 
Testament of the miraculous bestowment of the 
Spirit. These are recorded in Acts 2:4; 8: 17; 
10: 44, 45; 19: 6. In two of these it is known as 
baptism in the Spirit. This special manifesta- 
tion of the Spirit was bestowed without the im- 
position of the hands of an apostle, and so it 
seems to be distinct from other miraculous gifts 
in that it was bestowed by Jesus alone, without 
the intervention of human agency. Baptism in 
the Spirit was not for the purpose of cleansing 
from sin nor solely for the purpose of empower- 
ing for service, only in a special sense of the 
meaning of the word "service," but is a tech- 
nical expression used to convey the idea of spe- 
cial power imparted by Jesus alone for the accom- 
plishment of a specific end, and the presence of 
■the power in each case was made evident by the 
ability to testify miraculously by speaking with 
tongues. Now if this evidence is lacking and 
the power is not forthcoming, it seems incon- 
sistent to use this expression as applicable to the 
work of the Holy Spirit to-day, if we would call 
Bible things by Bible names. The Scriptures 
which the essayist uses to sustain his position, 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 159 

are, to say the least of them, doubtful as to their 
bearing upon this point. A doubtful exegesis of 
any passage is not to be accepted when it contra- 
venes Scripture text. He quotes first, 1 Cor. 
12: 13: "In one Spirit were we all baptized into 
one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether 
bond or free, and were all made to drink of one 
Spirit." This is not the technical expression, 
^'baptism in the Holy Spirit," for which we con- 
tend. Baptism in the Holy Spirit was not to 
introduce into the one body. The Corinthians 
were baptized in water into the one body. The 
apostles at Pentecost were baptized into the one 
body before they were baptized in the Holy 
Spirit. In their case the two acts are separate 
and distinct. Those of the household of Corne- 
lius were baptized in the Holy Spirit before they 
were baptized into the one body. From which 
it will be seen that the two acts, baptism in the 
Holy Spirit, and baptism into the one body, are 
separate and distinct in the only two cases on 
record where baptism in the Holy Spirit is 
spoken of at all. In order to accept the con- 
clusion that baptism in the Holy Spirit is for 
every disciple of Christ to-day, there must be 
a specific Scripture given which states that fact, 
or it must be shown by logical deduction that 
baptism in the Spirit is a condition of entrance 
into the one body common and necessary to all 
believers. The terms of entrance into the one 



160 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

body are specifically stated by the Master him- 
self in the fundamental law of the kingdom of 
God. The one body, in the passage under con- 
sideration, must refer to the body of Christ, the 
church, the kingdom of God. Baptism in the 
Holy Spirit is not found in this fundamental law 
as a term of entrance into the one body. This 
phrase, **In one Spirit were we all baptized into 
one body," cannot, therefore,refer to baptism in 
the Spirit in the scriptural use of the term, since 
it states a condition which is common to all in 
entering the one body. We must, therefore, find 
its meaning in the terms of entrance as expressed 
in this organic law. 

He quotes again from 1 Cor. 6: 11: "But ye 
were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were 
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and in the Spirit of our God." It is a gratuitous 
assumption to identify this as baptism in the 
Spirit. I again emphasize the fact that baptism 
in the Spirit is a technical phrase used to indi- 
cate a specific, temporary work of the Spirit ia 
the introduction of the gospel. 

The use of Titus 3: 5, 6, involves the same 
error as the above. He also quotes Eph. 5: 18, 
"And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, 
but be filled with the Spirit." This is the point 
at issue. Filled, in this use of the word, means 
fulfilled — to accomplish. It means to have the 
Spirit, in all his fullness, as a Comforter. The 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 161 

man who is doing his life work normally is 
Spirit-filled. It would be erroneous to say that 
this is the same as the extraordinary enduement 
at Pentecost. In defining the work and office of 
the Holy Spirit, the expression "be filled with 
the Spirit" (one specific gift or work of the 
Spirit) is as distinct in meaning from ''baptism 
in the Spirit" (another specific gift or work of 
the Spirit) as baptism in the Spirit is from '*the 
miraculous gifts of the Spirit," — a specific gift 
which was imparted by the laying on of the apos- 
tles' hands. The infilling of the Spirit is for the 
purpose of empowering for service. It endues 
us with power, not to work miracles, but to work 
for Christ in the spread of the gospel and the 
salvation of men. The essayist would add to 
the strength and value of his paper were he to 
make the distinction between ''filled with the 
Spirit," and "baptism in the Spirit," — both of 
which are specific in meaning, but each convey- 
ing a different idea and expressing a different 
work of the Spirit. One is permanent, the 
other temporary. Nor is this a mere quibble 
over words. If we insist on using the phrase 
"baptism in the Spirit" as applicable to the 
work of the Spirit to-day, we are forced to give 
to it a different meaning from that given it in the 
Scriptures. If we do this it will have as many 
meanings as there are schools to define it. It 

may mean anything or nothing, and will become a 
11 



162 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

loose expression, as it has already done, without 
any definite meaning other than a vague concep- 
tion of some mysterious power which is to come 
upon those who are to receive it, accompanied by 
certain electric sensations which find expression 
in different ways, varying with the temperament 
of the individual. If the phrase retains its orig- 
inal meaning it can not apply to the work of the 
Spirit as he manifests himself to us now. The 
curse of denominationalism arises from a mis- 
conception of the office and work of the Holy 
Spirit. Its cure will be found in "rightly divid- 
ing the word of truth" and measuring its every 
line of teaching concerning the Holy Spirit. 
The follies and fads that are mixed with evan- 
gelism, which retard the progress of the king- 
dom of God on earth, and tend to mystify and 
mislead the minds of intelligent students of his 
Word, have originated in almost every case from 
a misconception of the Holy Spirit in his various 
manifestations and functions, confounding the 
temporary and the permanent. The baptism 
in the Spirit is a gift separate and distinct from 
the gift of the Spirit as a Comforter, which gift 
is promised to every obedient believer. It is 
also difiPerent from the extraordinary gifts of the 
Spirit, which were imparted by the imposition of 
the apostles' hands. It is different from being 
filled with the Spirit, an expression to indicate 
the more complete work of the Comforter. A 



THE HOIvY SPIRIT. 163 

vessel may be filled with water without being 
immersed in it. It may be immersed in water 
without being filled with it. It may be both im- 
mersed in and filled icith water at the same time. 
The two expressions, "baptism in the Spirit," 
and "filled with the Spirit" are not synonymous. 
A man was baptized in the Spirit when Christ 
Jesus sent the Spirit upon him in such profusion 
as to completely control him and give to him 
power that is superhuman, the evidence of which 
was the ability to testify miraculously by speak- 
ing w^ith tongues to prove the truthfulness of 
the message and the divine origin of the mis- 
sion. A man is filled with the Spirit when he 
knows God's will as revealed in the Scriptures, 
and gives himself unreservedly to the Spirit 
whose words it contains. The baptism in the 
Spirit is a miracle not dependent upon the con- 
dition or character of the individual. The filling 
of the Spirit is his blessed permanent work, sub- 
ject to the mental and spiritual conditions of the 
individual himself. The extent of our ignorance 
of God's Word and of our failure to submit our- 
selves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit who re- 
veals that will, measures our lack of being filled 
with the Spirit. Hence we are responsible to 
God if we are not filled with the Spirit, but no 
one is responsible if not baptized in the Spirit. 
God alone is responsible for this. The Holy 
Spirit has a plan for work. His different offices 



164 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

are expressed by different phrases. He "divides 
to every man severally as he will." He convicts 
of sin. He sheds abroad the love of God in the 
heart. He helps in prayer by strengthening our 
infirmities. He is available for edification, for 
service, for holiness. The needful thing to-day 
is a ministry, a church, filled with the Holy Spirit. 
But let us not confound this precious ministry 
with the baptism in the Spirit, which was for a 
different purpose, the end of which has been 
secured. 

3. Method of the Holy Spirit's Operation in 
Salvation. 

Here again mysticism has triumphed over dis- 
cernment in the author's treatment of the 
method of the Holy Spirit's operation in salva- 
tion. He has permitted his theory of baptism 
in the Holy Spirit to mystify his conception of 
the Spirit's method of operation in salvation. 
In order to a clear understanding of the method, 
let the special function of the Holy Spirit, called 
"baptism in the Holy Spirit," be eliminated. 
This will clear our vision and simplify our study. 
In such an investigation we ought to move along 
the line of well certified facts. We are not war- 
ranted by scriptural facts, in reference to bap- 
tism in the Holy Spirit, to admit it as a factor 
essential in the conversion of sinners or the 
sanctification of believers. Therefore, it must 
be eliminated from our study of the Holy Spir- 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 165 

it's method of operating in salvation. The facts 
that the Holy Spirit operates in effecting salva- 
tion, and that he operates through the specific 
truth of the gospel to this end, are conceded. 
The universality of this fact in every case of 
conversion and sanctification recorded in the 
New Testament, places this proposition beyond 
controversy. This luminous truth has made 
evangelism intelligible and has been potent in 
dispelling the clouds of mysticism, and has given 
to the world the highest type of spiritual life. 

The two errors mentioned by the essayist 
(** mysticism and rationalism"), indicate ex- 
tremes of thought, each containing partial truth, 
which is the most dangerous kind of error. 
These errors have found representatives among 
the unintelligent or unconverted, but have found 
no advocates among intelligent disciples of 
Christ. Hence the expressions quoted in the 
paper are incompetent as premises for a general 
conclusion. They are expressions put into the 
mouth of the advocates of the truth by their 
enemies, or extorted from them in the heat of 
discussion. 

From these two errors thus meeting each 
other, the essayist comes to the following con- 
clusion, quoting his own words: "Finally, to 
rebut the mystical notion that the Spirit oper- 
ates in salvation separately and apart from the 
Word of truth, it (rationalism) has affirmed the 



166 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

misleading negation that the Spirit operates to 
these ends only through the Word." The propo- 
sition which he here calls a ''misleading nega- 
tion," has passed through the crucible of the 
keenest investigation and has not been found 
wanting. Without a single fact in connection 
with any conversion recorded in the New Testa- 
ment, or a single statement of the inspired 
writers to the contrary, we must still hold with 
the fathers as a truth, that the Holy Spirit oper- 
ates in salvation not without the Word of truth. 
Mr. Campbell, in affirming this proposition, 
speaks as follows: (Campbell and Eice Debate, 
page 723.) '*Thus we have all the authority of 
the Bible with us in our views of spiritual and 
divine influence. A spiritual or moral or crea- 
tive power without the Word of God is a phan- 
tom, a mere speculation. It receives no counte- 
nance from the Bible." In his closing address 
on this subject, he speaks as follows, (page 745): 
"I believe the Spirit accompanies the Word, is 
always present with the Word, and actually and 
personally works through it upon the moral 
nature of man, but not without it." On page 
747, he speaks again as follows: "Now I ask 
Mr. Rice to bring forward one single case of any 
one being converted to the Lord without the 
Word being first heard and believed! If the 
salvation of the world depended upon it he 
could not give it. It is, then, so far as the New 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 167 

Testament deposeth, idle and worse than idle, to 
talk about sanctification or conversion without 
the Word and Spirit of God. They are always 
united in the great work. No one is converted 
by the Word alone nor by the Spirit alone." 
. . . "So that, as far as sacred history goes, 
the Spirit of God never did operate without the 
Word." He also says on page 748, *'So that it 
appears in fact, indisputable, that the Spirit of 
God rather follows, and in no case precedes, the 
progress or arrival of his Word. We have 
the history of man in the four quarters of the 
world, in attestation of this most significant and 
momentous fact." . . . "Not one single 
thought, idea, or impression truly spiritual, can 
be heard from any man in Christendom not bor- 
rowed from the Holy Book, directly or indirect- 
ly." On page 750 he says further: "My thir- 
teenth argument consists in that most sublime 
and impressive fact, that God nowhere has oper- 
ated without his Word, either in the old creation 
or in the new. In nature and in grace, God 
operates not without his Word. He never has 
wrought without means. He has, as far as earth's 
annals reach, and as the rolls of eternity have 
been open to our view, never done any thing 
without an instrumentality. The naked Spirit 
of God never has operated upon the naked 
spirit of man, so far as all science, all revelation 
teach. Abstract spiritual operation is a pure 



168 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

metaphysical dream. There is nothing to favor 
such a conceit in nature, providence or grace." 
These quotations from an author so eminent, 
are abundantly sufficient to invalidate, so far as 
human authority can, the contention of the es- 
sayist as expressed in the following language: 
He says, "It has often been a debate whether 
the Holy Spirit in his office of conversion and 
sanctification operates on the human soul indi- 
rectly or directly, mediately or immediately, only 
through the Word or separate and apart from 
the Word. There could not be a more needless 
debate in religious matters." The essayist 
would turn the thought on this question back- 
wards a hundred years, and repudiate as unnec- 
essary and wasteful the work of giving the ra- 
tional, scriptural conception to the religious 
world of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit's 
method of operation in salvation. Mr. Camp- 
bell, the Christian thinker, whose exposition and 
defense of this doctrine has molded the thought 
of our time and exerted an influence upon the 
religious life of the age equal to or above that 
of any man in this century, let us believe, did 
not live nor work in vain. The essayist says 
further, *'Thus, according to the Scriptures, the 
Spirit of Grod is everywhere, in pagan twilights, 
in Jewish moonlights, in Christian sunlights." 
. . . *'He strives with man according to truth 
in nature, or law, or gospel. Thus, according to 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 169 

the Scriptures, his presence in pagan twilights of 
conscience, or in Jewish moonlights of psalm 
and prophecy, becomes a larger, a fuller, a meas- 
ureless presence in the sunlight of the gospel of 
the Son of God's love." He says also, "Equal- 
ly, in the light of the Scriptures, in the light of 
the philosophy of Spirit, the Holy Spirit's pres- 
ence and operation in salvation are at once im- 
mediate and mediate." The fact that all truth, 
whether found in "pagan twilights or Jewish 
moonlights," or in heathen consciousness, or 
Hebrew history, may benefit the world, is not 
here called in question, because not vitally re- 
lated to the subject. The theme under consid- 
eration is "The method of the Holy Spirit's 
operation in salvation" through the Christ. The 
methods of his operation, if operating at all, in 
any other salvation, is not within the scope of 
our discussion, and must be left entirely within 
the domain of conjecture. The inference of the 
essayist that the Holy Spirit operates in salva- 
tion aside from the Word of truth, as seen in the 
use of such terms as "immediate," "direct," 
etc., can not be accepted in the light of script- 
ural facts and historic conclusions. We have no 
confidence in any conversion not wrought by the 
Spirit of God through the Word of truth. Any 
separation of Spirit and Word in operating in 
salvation is an injustice to both. The theory of 
the essayist leads to indefiniteness in religious 



170 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

conception, mysticism in faith, and correspond- 
ing deformity of life. Any theory which does 
not develop a robust Christian consciousness, a 
definite, intelligent faith, and a symmetrical 
Christian character, is, to say the least, incom- 
petent. The contentions of the essayist as to 
the unity of the person and the office of the 
Spirit can not receive our endorsement. The 
Spirit's person is larger than, and distinct from, 
his office. His very personality implies this. 
We believe that the Scriptures relied upon do 
not sustain the inference when subjected to a 
correct exegesis. 

In conclusion, we cordially agree with the 
essayist in the value of a correct conception of 
the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, believing that it 
will greatly advance a scriptural evangelism and 
enrich the spiritual life of disciples of Christ. 

W. E. Ellis. 



Crucial points Concerning the Roly 
Spirits 

A Supplementary Statement. 

IT is evident to my mind that the last word 
concerning the Holy Spirit has not yet been 
spoken. There never was a time when there 
was so much unrest and anxiety; desire to know 
more, express more and feel more upon this 
question, than within the last few years. Scarce- 
ly any other theological question is eliciting more 
careful study or inspiring more new books. 

The leading paper shows very careful thought 
and preparation, and is well worthy of the at- 
tention which it will no doubt receive from you. 

My instructions from the committee do not 
require me to review the leading paper, nor 
write a critique upon it. It is rather our duty, 
as leaders, to bring this theme as fully as possi- 
ble before you, and leave it for you to review 
and criticise. Hence, my paper will be rather a 
supplement to the leading paper than a review 
of it. 

He has presented the theme from the exeget- 

ical and philosophical standpoints. I wish to 

look at its practical side. His presentation is 

171 



172 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

from the viewpoint of the pulpit and the plat- 
form, the theologian, the philosoher, the 
scholar. 

My presentation will be from the position of 
the pew, the work-bench, the counting-house 
and the drawing-room. He deals with a theory; 
I wish to deal with the application of that 
theory. 

For his purpose, I suppose that his classifica- 
tion is satisfactory. However, it seems to me 
that the time has come for a new classification 
in our study of this important question. The 
old classification has been fought over so long 
and so hard that it has almost come to have a 
technical meaning, and the very mention of it is 
suggestive of lengthy discussions, wrangles and 
contentions. 

If I were writing a volume, I would make a 
very different classification from the one I shall 
use here. For a general and voluminous classi- 
fication, I would consider the following to be 
crucial points in the study of the Holy Spirit : 

1. His Personality. 

2. His Relation to God and the Christ. 

3. His Relation to the World. 

4. His Relation to Man. 

Under the last, as a subordinate classification 
of crucial points, I would consider: 
(1) His relation to the alien sinner. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 173 

(2) His relation to the disciple learning the 
way to the Master. 

(3) His relation to the saint, or obedient dis- 
ciple. 

Owing to my limitations in time, I shall in this 
paper consider only the last of these subdivisions. 
For the present study, I regard the crucial point 
in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit to be: 

1st. A realization of the Holy Spirit. 

2d. A realization of the realization of the 
Holy Spirit. 

Is it not a fact that the experience of the 
Christian world measures far below its theories 
and teachings concerning the Holy Spirit? It 
seems to me that one of three things must be 
true: 

1. Our teachings are not sustained by the 
Bible promises; or, 

2. The Bible promises are not true; or, 

3. The Christian world is living far below 
its privileges and possibilities. 

Does the Bible teach that there is a Holy 
Spirit, self-conscious, who is interested in us, 
who cares for us, whose mission is to help, com- 
fort, witness, seal, strengthen and pray for us? 

The leading paper has shown that the Bible 
so teaches. Then some important questions arise : 

Does the experience of the Christian world 
correspond with this teaching of the Bible? If 
not, why not? 



174 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

If there be such a Holy Spirit, self-conscious, 
one of the Godhead, thoughtful, helpful, regard- 
ful of me and my interests, with me and dwell- 
ing in me, should I not have other evidence of 
the fact than simply a testimony from without? 
Are all the truths and facts concerning the Holy 
Spirit simply matters of careful and critical 
exegesis? Or is the Holy Spirit a personal exist- 
ence who is able to testify in his own behalf? If 
the Holy Spirit has a mission for man, with man 
and ill man, may we not reasonably expect that 
his presence shall be experienced? That there 
shall be evidence of that presence derived from 
our own consciousness? After all, may there not 
be more ground for the idea of "feeling" in re- 
ligion than we have been wont to admit? 

In our study of the limitations of the Spirit, 
let us consider carefully whether God has lim- 
ited him so that he cannot make his presence 
known to us except by a correct exegesis of the 
Scriptures, or whether we by our actions are 
limiting him, and in this way preventing his 
becoming to us an actual experience. This, to 
my mind, is the real battle-ground. I care little 
for a war of words. It matters little to me 
whether you call it a possession of the Spirit, an 
enduement of the Spirit, an overwhelming of 
the Spirit, or a baptism in the Spirit. 

The important thing to me is to know whether 
there be any Holy Spirit promised, and whether 



THE HOIvY SPIRIT. 175 

that promise has been fulfilled in me. Does he 
actually dwell in me, and help me? If not, why 
not? It seems to me that we have had quite 
enough of fine-spun theories and intellectual 
analyses on this subject. The thing we need now 
is the experience, if such is to be had. If we 
have it for ourselves, then we may show others. 

If it is not to be had, then we must readjust 
our interpretations of the Bible, for any inter- 
pretation that will not stand the test of practi- 
cal application must be faulty, and of little 
value. He is certainly promised to the Christian 
in a way that the world has him not. But the 
w^orld has the Word, and the teaching of the 
Word; then in what other sense may he be the 
Christian's possession unless it be in a blessed 
experience of which the world knows not? 

Let us suppose a man on a journey. He is 
promised that he is to have with him a guide, 
companion, comforter, helper. Suppose he 
never knows anything more of the companion 
than the promise. He never sees him, hears 
him, nor in any way realizes his presence. You 
ask him if he has a companion with him, and he 
answers, ''Yes, I suppose so; I have the prom- 
ise of one." But you ask, "Have you realized 
his presence or help in any way?" He says, 
"N-n-no, not exactly." But you insist, "Has 
he comforted you at any time, has he really 



176 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

helped you in any way?" He replies, "I can't 
say that he has," etc., etc. 

In a case of that kind, you would soon come 
to one of three conclusions: 

1st. There was something wrong about the 
promise; or, 

2d. There was something wrong about his in^ 
terpretation of it; or, 

3d. There was something wrong about him. 
That he was in some way responsible for the 
absence of the promised friend. 

Apply this thought to Christianity of to-day. 
Assuming all the people in our churches to be 
just as honest and frank as the Ephesians men- 
tioned in Acts 19:2, let us apply Paul's ques- 
tion, "Eeceived ye the Holy Spirit when ye be- 
lieved?" I fear that a large number would be 
compelled to answer, **We have not so much as 
heard whether there be any Holy Spirit." Some 
could say that they had read something about it,, 
or had heard it mentioned. 

ANOTHER TEST. 

But, says one, "We have a test by which we 
can determine the presence or absence of the 
Spirit. 'By their fruits ye shall know them;^ 
'Now the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, 
longsuffering, gentleness, meekness, temperance, 
patience,' " etc. 



^ THB HOLY SPIRIT. 177 

It must be true that wherever the Holy Spirit 
of God is, there are love, joy, peace, longsuffer- 
ing, temperance, patience, etc.; but is the con- 
verse true? — that wherever love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, temperance, patience, etc., are found, 
that this is proof positive of the presence of the 
Holy Spirit? 

If this be true then we must readjust our exe- 
gesis of the passages that refer to lioio we obtain 
the Spirit, and iclio may have the Spirit's pres- 
ence. 

For we find many people who have not obeyed 
the gospel, and who do not pray for the Holy 
Spirit; who, indeed, do not believe in any such 
personality or indwelling, and yet they have love, 
joy, peace, longsuffering, etc. 

It seems to me that we are forced to one of 
three positions: — 

1st. To a readjustment of our interpretation 
of the Scriptures on this subject; or 

2d. Accept the rationalistic view; or 

3d. Begin a new crusade for a larger spiritual 

experience than we have ever yet enjoyed. This 

is to be done by first opening our own hearts for 

an infilling; then we may carry to the multitudes 

what but few Christians have ever yet enjoyed — 

a kind of after-Pentecostal experience. 
12 



178 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

WHY THIS SPIRITUAL DEARTH? 

It cannot be that God has promised the Holy 
Spirit to us and then limited him so that he can 
not fulfill the promise. It is contrary to all the 
revelation that we have of the Holy Spirit, to 
say that he is regardless of us. Then it must be 
that the limitation is on our part. 

Jesus told the woman at the well, that if she 
had asked of him he would have given unto her 
living water, after drinking of which she would 
never thirst again. It was right there, flowing 
all about her, and yet even the Master was lim- 
ited from giving it to her, because she was not in 
proper condition to receive it. May it not be 
that we are to-day where she was? 

In all of God's dealings with man he recog- 
nizes his free agency. It was four thousand 
years before the Christ came because the world 
was not ready to receive him. When he came he 
never compelled any one to accept him. Can it 
be possible that after his coming and sacrifice 
his Holy Spirit has been limited in his work for 
two thousand years more, because the world is 
not ready to receive him? 

Jesus teaches this same lesson in that rebuke 
to his own countrymen who rejected him : ''I tell 
you of a truth many widows were in Israel in the 
days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three 
years and six months, when great famine was 



THE HOIvY SPIRIT. 179 

throughout the land; but unto none of them 
was Elias sent save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, 
unto a woman that was a widow. And many 
lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the 
prophet; and none of them was cleansed saving 
Naaman the Syrian" (Luke 4: 25-27). 

The historian tells us that "Jesus did not 
many mighty works in Nazareth because of their 
unbelief." 

The New Testament teaches that we may 
oppose, resist, grieve, drive away, quench and 
blaspheme the Holy Spirit. 

These things being true, may it not be also 
true that we have the key to the solution of 
the problem of spiritual decline that has so long 
puzzled earnest, thoughtful men? An important 
question: — 

Who is responsible for this state of affairs? 
Largely^ the ministry. 

1st. The Evangelists. 

2d. The Pastors. 

1st. Much evangelism has been to depreciate 
the work of the Holy Spirit. I have heard 
more sermons telling what the Holy Spirit does 
not do than I ever heard telling what he may do. 

But, says the objector, "They have success." 

True, an intellectually strong man, or a man 
of force and method may get people to come 
into the church; and many may, and I fear often 
do, join just as they join a club or a lodge by 



180 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

complying with the outward conditions without 
the spiritual birth. 

Intellectual and physical results are produced, 
but not spiritual. They need spiritual powder 
behind the ball to drive it home, to produce 
spiritual results. 

May it not be that the reason why so much 
preaching falls lifeless upon so many in our 
audiences is because the preacher and the mem- 
bers are barren of any rich experience of the 
presence of God's Holy Spirit? 

The people come to the services asking bread, 
and they get a stone. They come seeking life, 
and they find a dead body. The stream rises no 
higher than the fountain head. 

How can men lead others to the store-house 
of the bread of life if they have never been there 
themselves? They can not lead up to the foun- 
tain of the water of life who have never tasted 
it. They who have never seen it cannot point 
others to the spiritual light. 

How many converts go down into the water 
realizing a birth both of the water and of the 
Spirit? Too many have failed to impress all 
that is involved in Jesus' teaching on regenera- 
tion. 

"BORN OF THE WATER AND THE SPIRIT." 

There are two extremes relative to this doc- 
trine : 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 181 

The Mystics make it all Holy Spirit baptism. 

The Rationalists leave out all practical ideas 
of the Holy Spirit's part. Some churches have 
too many Mystics. 

But I fear that we have too many Rational- 
ists — who have been born of the water only. 

2d. The second responsibility for this condi- 
tion of affairs is to be found in our pastoral 
teaching. 

The churches are not nurtured to experience 
the Holy Spirit. 

I wonder how many pastors among us have 
ever given their congregations a careful, sys- 
tematic study of the word of God upon this sub- 
ject — presenting it in simple language so that 
even the lambs are fed. I wonder how many 
believe and have realized from experience all 
that is involved in such promises as these : — 

1. "In one Spirit were we all baptized into 
one body." 

2. "He shall be in you." 

3. "How much more will your Father in 
heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
him?" 

4. "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is riot, 
but be filled with the Holy Spirit" (Eph. 5: 19). 

5. "Ye were washed, ye were sanctified, ye 
were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus 
and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6: 11). 

6. "The kingdom of God is righteousness, 



182 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17). 

7. *'Now the God of hope fill you with all 
joy and peace in believing, that you may abound 
in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit" 
(Rom. 15:13). 

8. "The Spirit helps our infirmities, for we 
know not what we should pray for as we ought; 
but the Spirit also himself maketh intercession 
for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. 
And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what 
is the mind of the Spirit; because he maketh 
intercession for the saints according to the will 
of God" (Rom. 8:2H, 27). 

9. "And because you are sons, God has sent 
forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, cry- 
ing Abba, Father" (Gal. 6:6). 

The scientific is the method to be applied 
here; that is, "Let each one test for himself." 
"O taste and see that the Lord is good," is 
especially applicable to our churches to-day. 
Too many have not even tasted of the Spirit, 
much less been filled with the Spirit. 

Would we be filled with the Holy Spirit? then 
let us take God at his word, and prepare a place 
for him. When we are prepared for his recep- 
tion, let us invite him in. 

My thought can be best expressed here in the 
language of that inimitable little work by J. M. 
Campbell of Chicago— "4/"^er Pentecost WhatT' 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 183 

"The Heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit 
to them that ask him, not to them who agonize, 
but to them who ask; and he gives an increased 
measure to them who ask for more. . . . 
When the soul's mouth is opened wide, God fills 
it. . . . The hope is cherished that a new 
era of spiritual power is about to break upon us. 
It cannot come too soon ; and come it will just 
as soon as the church, appreciating the glorious 
possibilities of the present dispensation, begins 
to draw upon heaven's reserved resources. . . . 
Is it any wonder that the life of the church is 
fitful, that her love languishes, that her zeal de- 
clines, and that her power decays, when she per- 
sists in waiting for God instead of waiting upon 
God? Her brightest hope has come to be that 
she might be mercifully blest with an occasional 
visitation of the Holy Spirit, when what is 
needed to raise her out of her lethargy and 
weakness, and spiritualize all of her activities is 
not a movement of the Holy Spirit toward her, 
but a movement on her part toward the Spirit; 
not a fresh outpouring, but many a fresh inpour- 
ing of the Spirit. Christians are not to pray for 
the advent of the Spirit; they are to pray that 
their eyes may be opened to his presence ; they 
are not to pray for his descent, but for his in- 
habitation; they are not to agonize to bring him 
near, they are to recognize his nearness: they 
are not to seek him in the heavens, but in their 



184 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

hearts; they are not to set themselves to obtain 
his power as a gift ungranted, they are to receive 
in larger abundance the gift of power already 
given ; they are not to expend their labor in en- 
deavoring to induce the Lord to make over to 
them a new inheritance, they are to fulfill the 
conditions necessary to immediate entrance 
upon and complete possession of the wonderful 
inheritance which is already theirs. 

"The trouble about obtaining increased spirit- 
ual power is not with the Spirit, but with our- 
selves. What we need is increased power of 
spiritual appropriation. The Spirit is as really 
with us as Christ was with his disciples during 
his incarnate state. As the mighty power which 
moves through all things, and by which all 
things are moved, he is ever at work in our be- 
half; and what we have to do is to bring our- 
selves in connection with him, and keep in con- 
nection with him." 

CONCLUSION. 

In conclusion, I would say that to us the cru- 
cial point in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is 
our attitude toward the Spirit. What the church 
needs to-day, both in the pulpit and the pew, is 
a new adjustment of its relations to the Holy 
Spirit. We need to understand that the low 
plane of our living may be, after all, the solution 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 185 

of the problem concerning the Spirit, that has 
confused so many for so long a time. 

May it not be that when we shall have com- 
plied fully with the scriptural conditions of 
cleansing, and then go up into the mountain, as 
Moses did, and spend more time with God, 
we, too, might come down with shining faces? 
Let us all "Taste and see that the Lord is good, 
for blessed is the man that trusteth in him." 

F. N. Calvin. 



VIII. 

Organization and its Adjustment 

to the Present Needs of the 

Church. 



SEVENTH SESSION. 

This session was devoted to "Church Organization." B. 
B. Tyler, Colorado Springs, Colo., presided, and at once in- 
troduced A. B. Philputt, of Indianapolis, who read the paper 
which follows on "Organization and Its Adaptation to the 
Needs of the Church." He was reviewed by W. P. Richard- 
son, of Kansas City, in the paper which follows, and by 
George A. Miller, of Covington, Ky., whose address was 
from notes, and does not appear here. The discussion which 
followed was exceedingly interesting. 
188 



nil. 

Organization and Its Hdjustment to the 
present J^eeds of the CburcK 

OUR first question is concerning the purpose 
of the church. All will agree that in 
some way humanity's hope stands or falls with 
Jesus Christ. If his programme is not success- 
ful there is no rival to take its place. But is 
his work essentially bound up with an organiza- 
tion? Many will question it. The outward, vis- 
ible church is not to-day held in the highest 
esteem. Some say that it has as often hindered 
as helped the influence of Christianity; that it 
is not essential to salvation, and that in the 
process of evolution it may all but disappear. 

We, of course, hold this view of the question 
to be wrong, and find the reason for its preva- 
lence, partly, in the divided condition of Chris- 
tendom. The argument that will justify a divided 
church will justify an individual in his notion 
that it makes little difference whether he belongs 
to any. 

Before discussing details of organization let us 
decide that there is such a thing as the outward, 
formal, visible church, given to us of God, hav- 
ing the high sanctions of heaven about it, and 

189 



190 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

designed to be kept inviolate and unbroken for 
all ages, as the channel through which salvation 
shall come to the sons of men. The great open 
sore of Christendom is division — the highest 
desideratum is Christian unity. 

If the Savior's aim were to rescue one here 
and there from the wreck of a crumbling and 
perishing world, little need would be felt for the 
study of organization. But this conception of 
salvation Jesus disavows. It is not a question of 
goodness. Men may be good in the church or 
out of the church. It is a question of a man's 
attitude towards Christ's purpose of bringing 
the kingdoms of this world into subjection to 
himself. Every man has a mission to his fellow- 
man. The church has a mission to the whole 
world. 

It is a significant fact that whenever individ- 
uals come to feel deeply any of the ills of 
humanity, they effect an organization at once 
for their alleviation. It is through organization 
that large purposes are carried out. "This has 
been called the age of individualism," says Dr. 
Frank Crane, of Chicago, "and the human unit 
has been emphasized in our thoughts of business, 
of politics and of religion, until the fabric of 
humanity sometimes seems likely to fall apart. 
And yet I doubt if there ever was an era in 
which men were more inseparable than they are 
to-day. There is no more a private opinion, but 



ORGANIZATION. 191 

only a huge public opinion, and we care not 
what the one thinks, but what the mighty all 
thinks. There is talk these days about saving 
neighborhoods, cities, countries and races." 

The spirit of individualism which has hitherto 
operated in the civil as well as the religious 
world is fast running its course. In politics the 
day of organization has come. The single man 
counts for little. In business, concentration is 
the rule. In education it is the same way. Dis- 
trict schools are getting fewer and larger. Great 
endowments are pushing the small colleges into 
still narrower limits. The widespread interest 
in church union looks in the same direction. 
Protestantism, with all its extremes and eccen- 
tricities, has not entirely lost the idea that salva- 
tion is in some way bound up with the church. 
For what we call salvation is a process that must 
be wrought out in this world, and in part 
through human agencies. * 'Christians live in an 
actual world," says Dr. McConnell, "and if they 
are to accomplish anything it must be by the 
same kind of methods which are necessary in 
this world. As things go here, even divine pro- 
cesses can only be effected by the use of machin- 
ery. God is practical. He undertakes nothing 
without tools." 

Now the kingdom of God proposes the re- 
demption of humanity. It is to cleanse and save 
men from their sins. It is to lay hold of body, 



192 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

soul and spirit, and sanctify them. It is to go 
unto the uttermost parts of the earth with the 
story of redeeming love. Such things cannot 
be done without suitable organization. Govern- 
ment is fostered by what we call the state. 
Human affections are preserved and refined by 
the institution known as the family. And the 
process which includes these and many more is 
the function of the church. 

As a body of Christian people, we are at the 
threshold of what many believe to be larger 
things. We certainly stand face to face with 
splendid opportunities. There is reason to fear 
that the church is not fully meeting the demands 
of the times. The battle of Waterloo was fought 
with the same kind of weapons as the battle of 
Blenheim, a hundred years before. But this is 
a century of progress, of steam and electricity, 
of wireless telegraphy and the motor cycle. The 
church should not use the methods of fifty years 
ago. Her plans and forces should be modern- 
ized. Her enterprises are, in a measure, dis- 
credited, because she is facing modern problems 
with antiquated methods. It may be well that 
she has largely surrendered the matter of educa- 
tion to the State and to large private munifi- 
cence. The church was once the almoner of the 
poor, giving succor to those in distress, and aid 
to the widow and the orphan. Public and pri- 
vate charities and fraternal orders now do this. 



ORGANIZATION. 193 

and in giving up this she has surrendered a cita- 
del of power. Foreign missions are discredited 
by some, who claim that the forces of commerce, 
war and government are the real factors in the 
uplifting of degraded peoples. But if the 
church should once enter upon the business of 
foreign missions on a scale commensurate with 
their importance, this criticism would be well 
answered. And until she can command vastly 
larger resources her capacity for great undertak- 
ings will continue to be doubted. But the prob- 
lem is quite as much how to use as how to get, 
and if the unused resources of the church were 
once called out we should be surprised at the 
result. 

If we are to consider the proper adjustment of 
organization to the needs of the church, a begin- 
ning should be made, I think, with the local con- 
gregation. Here rest all the obligations in mini- 
ature that belong to the universal body, and out 
of the local church must grow the larger plans 
and purposes of the brotherhood. 

What, then, should be its organization? The 
New Testament presents no complete scheme as 
divinely authorized, either by Jesus or his apos- 
tles. The earliest churches took the form sug- 
gested by their environment in Jewish, Greek or 
Roman territory, and these varying types were 
approved by the apostles, because the special 

form was not essential to the validity of the or- 
is 



194 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

ganism. There was the bare semblance of an 
organization in Jerusalem at first. The mission- 
ary spirit so filled the hearts of the people that 
they gave themselves to telling the story. Their 
assurance was so strong, their fellowship so 
sweet, that they felt little need of outward 
bonds. The new wine was in new bottles. The 
problem was simple. When the company of 
believers multiplied, however, and the events of 
Pentecost began to recede, new conditions arose. 
No one seemed to have any oflicial status at first. 
The apostles were the leaders more because of 
their peculiar relations to the ascended Lord 
than from any formal selection by the people. 
They did not rule as ecclesiastics. Later on, 
certain of them, as Peter, John, and especially 
James, are spoken of as pillars in the church, 
but they had simply come to it on the grounds of 
pre-eminent fitness. The relation of the Twelve 
to the church at large was much more distinct 
and official. As need arose, men were called out 
for special service, as, for instance, the seven 
deacons, though Luke does not call them dea- 
cons, who were appointed to look after the 
administration of alms. This did not interpose 
any barrier from higher ministries, if they were 
competent, for among them Stephen and Philip 
became famous as ministers of the Word. In 
general, the older men would have charge of 
things, and so the term "elder" finds a place in 



ORGANIZATION. 195 

the speech of the developing church long before, 
in my judgment, it designated an official relation. 
In Acts 15 : 23, Luke speaks of "the apostles and 
elder brethren," showing their unofficial charac- 
ter. No reference is made to elders in Paul's 
letters to the Galatians, Romans, or even the 
Corinthians. In the latter, first epistle, Ste- 
phanus is referred to as one to whom they should 
be in subjection, as he and his house had set 
themselves to minister among them, and the 
apostle urges that they be in subjection to such 
as do this. The statement in Acts 14: 23, where 
mention is made of Paul's appointing elders and 
deacons in every church in Galatia, will, of 
course, have to be reckoned with, but that is 
another story. The service of bishops was at first 
voluntary, and when the need of appointment 
was felt, they naturally selected those that had 
approved themselves. 

In the second century the church shows an 
advanced stage of organization. Ecclesiasticism 
is plainly growing up. Deacons are the assist- 
ants of the bishops and the two offices are no- 
where sharply distinguished. The ruling bishop 
develops into a functionary with special powers, 
and we have the Episcopacy as a direct out- 
growth of the Presbytery. Paul, in Eph. 4 : 11-13, 
summarizes the active agencies of the apostolic 
church as follows: "And he gave some to be 
apostles, and some prophets, and some evangel- 



196 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

ists and some pastors and teachers." The prin- 
ciple of adaptation is here most obvious. The 
New Testament precedent gives full warrant, I 
think, for such adjustment as the needs of a 
given time or place may demand. Paul more 
than once went to the utmost limits of expedi- 
ency, as, for instance, when he told the brethren 
at Corinth to have their women keep silence in 
the churches. In a large way, of course, the 
methods of the church are the same in all ages 
because the aims are the same, and deep down 
human nature and human needs are the same. 
The changes pertain only to details of method. 
The point I urge, so far as New Testament prece- 
dent is concerned, is that there is no hard, fixed 
form of organization set forth as divinely author- 
ized to be made perpetual. The church is a liv- 
ing organism, and in a living organism there is 
always a change in order to accommodate itself 
to new conditions. Any attempt to keep a pre- 
cise form handed down from the past is likely to 
be attended with disaster to the living spirit 
within. Church history illustrates this again 
and again. Zealous partisans are even to-day 
holding on to forms that are against the spirit of 
the age, and a part of the strength of the church 
is thus locked up behind old and useless contro- 
versies. There should be the fullest freedom in 
the reconstruction of church machinery and the 



ORGANIZATION. 197 

largest employment of forces for the advance- 
ment of the cause. 

Looking, then, at the average congregation to- 
day, do we see a highly organized and effectual 
instrument for doing Christian work? It is 
granted that the preaching is well done, your 
essayist will make no criticism of that. But 
there are four things that are not well done, and 
these four things I will mention in order, begin- 
ning with that wherein there is the most serious 
lack. 

First. The teaching function is not well pro- 
vided for. 

Second. The benevolences of the church are 
not well looked after. 

Third. The pastoral work is inadequately 
done. 

Fourth. The evangelistic pressure is not uni- 
form and healthful. 

Let us consider these in order. The teaching 
function of the church is of necessity entrusted 
largely to the Sunday-school. The pulpit, of 
course, is a factor, but didactic preaching is not 
popular. The sermon must be full of snap and 
tire and illustration. The teaching of the Script- 
ures in the home is almost a thing of the past. 
Parents have given it over very largely to the 
Sunday-school. Now, the modern Sunday-school 
is a bright and beautiful thing and a great bless- 
ing to the church. But it does not, and cannot, 



198 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

under present conditions, supply the teaching 
function. Look for a moment at secular educa- 
tioD. In the last twenty-five years the public 
school system has grown with wondrous strides. 
Its methods are abreast of the age. A high 
school course to-day aifords a training better 
than the college course did when some of us 
were boys. Specialists give themselves not only 
to the study of methods, but to the study of 
pupils. At what age should a child take up a 
given study, and at what pace should he be car- 
ried through it. Education may fairly be called 
a science. Every faculty is trained. Every 
sense is cultivated. It seems to me that the 
teaching function in the church should receive 
new emphasis. The high importance of this 
matter grows out of its necessary union, of in- 
struction of the intellect with the training of the 
conscience and the will. Surely here is a field 
for the trained specialist. Little attention has 
been given to it as compared with that which 
secular learning has received. Between the pul- 
pit and the Sunday-school is a place for such a 
man. The teaching force in our Sunday-school 
is recruited from the ranks of busy people, who 
are often less competent than willing. They 
have little time for the preparation of their 
work, and avail themselves of all convenient 
notes and comments upon the lesson, snatching 
them up hurriedly and forgetting them as soon 



ORGANIZATION. 199 

as they are done with. The modern Sunday- 
school does not by any means meet the demands 
of the church. It is weighted down with pre- 
liminary exercises in order to make it attractive, 
and but a short time is really given to the study 
of the lesson. With a man capable of training 
the teachers, and in other and larger ways stim- 
ulating the interest of the people in the study of 
the Bible, a great advance could be made in this 
department of the church. And with the man 
would come better methods and multiplied op- 
portunities in different directions, for the train- 
ing of the church in the things that ought to be 
known. We have not yet, as a people, sufficient- 
ly appreciated the possibilities that lie in this 
direction. Christ has a relation to childhood, 
and the church should make sure of the chil- 
dren. Their religious training should begin 
early, along lines suited to their age, and the 
same development and laws of teaching observed 
in their religious education that have proven so 
rational in secular education. We need trained 
teachers. There is wonderful interest in a live, 
critical unfolding of the Scriptures. Along this 
line lie great possibilities. Bible institutes, 
special courses, catechetical classes, Bethany 
Eeading Courses, are all practicable with a 
trained man to organize and properly adjust 
them. But it will require expenditure of money 
and re-adjustment of methods. 



200 OUR FIRST CONGRESS: 

In the second place, the benevolences of the 
church need attention. I include under this 
head all raising of money for current expenses, 
missionary objects, and charitable purposes. I 
describe three-fourths of our churches, if not 
indeed all of them, when I say that the giving is 
unequal, and that anything that could be called 
liberality is confined to a small per cent, of the 
membership. The subject of money is thought 
a delicate one, and it is touched upon very gin- 
gerly. Our congregations need education upon 
this matter. Not simply a deliverance now and 
then from the pulpit, but a personal contact 
with those who have to do with the money side 
of the church, who shall make them acquainted 
with the needs and desires of the church, who 
shall acquaint them with the good their money is 
doing and may do, and personally interest them 
in giving. We can double our offerings for all 
purposes in any congregation the moment some 
method is adopted which shall bring the matter 
fully and fairly before all the members. The 
time will come, I think, when we shall have done 
with methods of raising money other than by 
plain scriptural giving. 

In the third place, the pastoral work of the 
church is not well done. And by the pastoral 
relation I mean a close acquaintance with every 
family and individual, their peculiar circum- 
stances and needs, what they are and where they 



ORGANIZATION. 201 

are, and wherein, if at all, they are remiss in 
their religious life. Of course those who are 
sick or in trouble are to be visited, those who 
are indifferent and careless are to be labored 
with, and the unruly are to be warned. The 
true pastor is one who locates any evil or neglect 
upon the part of the church, and addresses him- 
self at once to its removal. It should be his 
study to keep all, as far as possible, in sympathetic 
relations with one another and with the church. 
He must be a wise, politic, clean, man and one 
whose presence in the home inspires confidence 
and love. In this department alone, if it should 
be studied and developed as it ought to be, there 
is full work for one man. It cannot possibly be 
well done under the present plan of putting all 
the work of a congregation upon one man. 

In the fourth place, the growth of our 
churches should be more steady and uniform. 
Evangelistic zeal breaks out too much in spots. 
It is altogether intermittent. There is a marked 
improvement going on, however, in this direc- 
tion among us. The bringing in of those that 
are without should be always kept in hand, and 
whilst there are times and seasons in this work, 
as in any other, there should be no long periods 
of dearth, when the church seems to have gone to 
sleep. When people are turning to the Lord, 
the spiritual tides run high and a sanctifying in- 
fluence goes on, unlocking all the springs of 



202 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

Christian service. Let the Lord add daily to 
the church such as should be saved. Now the 
great element in evangelistic work is the per- 
sonal one, and the reason that it is not better 
done is to be looked for in the utter inadequacy 
of our forces. In all of these matters which I 
have mentioned, unless we can get some new 
leverage, some larger grasp of the situation, some 
advanced step in methods, in other words, some 
readjustment in organization to meet the com- 
plex demands of a local work, things will go on 
about as they are. Our ministry is consecrated, 
intelligent and effective. But as long as one 
man is given four men's work, yea, four differ- 
ent kinds of men's work, it will be rare that 
superior excellence shall be attained along any 
line. Taking now the city congregation as a 
criterion, when the number of people included 
in it and the amount of money invested by it are 
considered, the visible returns are small. If the 
church is to leaven society, if it is to sweeten 
and recast the environments of men, it must 
brace itself for larger things. The aggregation 
of people into cities and towns affords splendid 
opportunities, but presents deadly perils. There 
is nothing finer than the modern city. It is the 
center of taste, of culture, of many of the 
highest refinements of life. There all the forces 
of progress focus themselves. It should be 
made the citadel of rio^hteousness. The modern 



ORGANIZATION. 203 

city has produced new ways of living and a new 
type of man. The imperial desire and demand 
of the present time is, that the gospel of Christ 
shall hold and mold the great centers of life. 
The living truths of Christianity must be applied 
to these complex social conditions. But to 
change conditions, we must first change men. 
Let the old controversies be relegated to the 
rear. Let old methods and prejudices give way, 
so far as need be, to this new crusade. As well 
use old war-ships in our modern navy, or old 
muskets in our modern infantry, as cling to 
old methods when they can no longer serve. 
Many of our city churches have grown largely 
by accretion. The country and village churches, 
God bless them, have converted the people and 
sent them into the cities by hundreds. These 
have gone into the churches of the city, bring- 
ing strength and piety and character. But there 
is one defect — the city church of to-day has prac- 
tically the methods of the country church. 
With all that is fine with this large element that 
has come in, there go certain prejudices that 
place limitations upon the city church. They 
are suspicious of that which seems to minister to 
pride, extravagance or expensiveness. Their 
ideas of giving are gauged by what they have 
been used to. They do not readily adjust them- 
selves to the needs of a progressive city work. 
Patience and persistence, therefore, are required 



204 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

to educate them to that liberality in money and 
method which the field requires. 

Now I believe that the time has come for the 
large church and the multiple force. Why so 
many small churches, each starving in order to 
starve a little more, each straining every nerve 
to wring money from poor people to pay sala- 
ries and carry heavy mortgages? Why, when 
with all this trouble the work, as a rule, can be 
but poorly done? There is no chance for spe- 
cialists, and the tide of spiritual power is often 
at a low ebb. The public is asked to maintain 
far too many churches, and as a lesult all for- 
ward movements are handicapped. 

The public is not getting the worth of its 
money with so many small meeting-houses, each 
loaded with debt. I know the pathos, the hero- 
ism, and sometimes the success with which a 
small congregation grows into a large one. I 
know also that a church must be small before it 
can be large. But the majority of congregations 
which I know, that were small twenty years ago 
are small to-day. The policy of our multiplying 
such is a bad one. Plant new congregations, of 
course, but do it wisely and with a view to rapid 
and large growth. A church wishes to send 
forth surplus money and influence in the realm 
of benevolence and missions. Its hands are tied 
by home necessities. Each church, if normal, 
ought to be large. Have a college of trained 



ORGANIZATION. 205 

workers, so that every interest — educational, be- 
nevolent, evangelistic — should be looked after, 
and financial shortage avoided. In brief, if one 
has a sane idea of what a church is meant to do, 
and what it could do if its strength were not 
drained by so many pigmy efforts and held down 
by such petty methods, he can easily see how far 
the modern church has drifted from the ideal. 
The genius of our age is concentration. The 
large church, with a number of workers, can do 
more with far less money, and do it better, than 
many small churches. The large church will up- 
hold broad ideas and develop broad, construct- 
ive men. It would be safe-guarded from one- 
man power and strong enough to defy the whims 
of any clique. Public worship could be main- 
tained with the dignity which modern culture 
demands. Uniformity and liberality would be 
assured in its benevolence, while mission schools 
and preaching stations could be kept up to suit 
the demands of its large parish. 

A few great religious centers, such as I have 
described, would cover a whole city more effect- 
ually than is done under the present method. 
In any large city you can see numbers of old 
church buildings abandoned, the congregations 
following the people like the Tabernacle in the 
Wilderness. Let us have temples, rather, to 
which the tribes go up, and whose lights are as 
steady as the North Star. This is advocated only 



206 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. " 

as a step forward in cities where we are strong 
enough to do it. It is not offered in any sense 
as a suggestion opposed to a wisely-directed city 
mission w^ork. 

What is called the Institutional Church need not 
here be considered, further than to say that where 
the conditions call for it, it is right and proper. 
Every church should adapt itself to its field. 
Methods must be determined by environments. 
If night classes, reading-rooms, kindergartens, 
etc., can be the means of bringing young people 
under the influence of the gospel, they are per- 
fectly legitimate. But in the very nature of 
things, the Institutional Church cannot exist 
very numerously, for these things are all better 
done by secular and benevolent agencies. A 
church building should be one of the most ac- 
cessible places in the town, and might, with 
profit, be kept open every day in the week, 
affording opportunity for sociability and recrea- 
tion. 

As to the organizations for general work, I 
feel less competent to speak, except to say that 
simplicity should be aimed at. Whether our 
present organizations are final, or whether an 
arrangement which involves only one, or at most 
fewer agencies, is feasible, I am not, perhaps, in 
the best position to judge. I confess, however, 
that I can see no sound business reason for per- 
manently continuing three or four organizations 



ORGANIZATION. 207 

to do what we are assured by all, is really one 
work. What radical difference is there between 
home and foreign missions, church extension, 
etc., that they should have separate boards, 
separate days, separate programs? It would sim- 
plify matters much if there were only one socie- 
ty, one convention, one board, one set of com- 
mittees. The State missionary organizations are 
being articulated with the national work, and 
this is right. There should be still closer unifica- 
tion extending also to city mission boards. A 
wise and impartial consideration could then be 
given to all interests, and any appearance of 
rivalry between them avoided. 

One thing I am sure of, and that is, that the 
churches are beginning to wince under the mul- 
tiplicity of appeals. If it were practicable, it 
would be better to have one treasury, one chan- 
nel, through which all monies should flow. 
Some of our people mistake what is really but 
emulation on the part of our different interests 
for rivalry. They get the notion, which I feel 
sure is a wrong one, that ambition to excel goes 
so far sometimes as to warp judgment and dis- 
cretion. The work is one, and I believe should 
be presented under the simple and general head 
of missionary work. Looking the situation 
squarely in the face and taking a long view of it, 
more education and less importunity would be 
better. Our people become confused amid so 



208 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

many appeals, wherein urgency outruns their 
information and sympathy. Let all devices, 
catch phrases, and decoying traps be done away 
with, and people asked to do plain giving. Set 
the standard high, make large claims on the 
ground that the Master hath need, and then 
show results. I believe such a course will be, in 
the long run, conducive to larger offerings, and 
in keeping with the dignity of these great pur- 
poses of the church. 

Another thing in connection with our mission- 
ary organizations that has seemed to me worth 
mentioning, is this: They are, somehow, not 
close enough to the people. The effort to in- 
crease the attendance of business men at the 
conventions is a worthy one. It would be desir- 
able, I think, to bring about a vastly larger rep- 
resentation of our churches in the annual gath- 
erings, and make it an official representation. 
Let the leading policies of the boards be deliber- 
ated upon, discussed and decided by such a body 
of delegates. As it is, the churches seem out of 
touch with the boards, and have little or nothing 
to do in determining their course of action. I 
cannot say that things would be more wisel}^ 
done, but they would be more representatively 
done. The churches would be committed to the 
policy in a fair and open way, and we could go 
before our congregations and say that these 
measures which we are asked to support pro- 



ORGANIZATION. 209 

ceed from a large and representative Dody. In 
other words, could we not have a delegate con- 
vention? The idea would gradually prevail 
among the churches, and it would be considered 
an honor and a privilege for one to be chosen to 
represent his congregation in such a body. The 
church, in a sense, is a democratic institution. 
It is but fair and consistent that those who are 
asked to give money and support measures, 
should in some way have an influence in deter- 
mining what is to be done. I know that, as at 
present organized, there is a theoretical submis- 
sion of matters to the people. We say that the 
convention voted so and so, but you all know 
how much that means. Thorough discussion and 
deliberate decision are rarely seen upon the floor 
of the convention. If we had a strictly delegate 
body, open to representation from every congre- 
gation, we should have a deliberative body. The 
churches would then feel a responsibility that 
they do not now feel in missionary matters. We 
need in our councils the wisdom and piety of 
men and women from all walks of life. 

We need also, and shall need it more and 
more, something like the Congregational or Bap- 
tist council, a body of limited but recognized 
authority, which may be summoned for special 
purposes. Our congregations and our ministry 
have suffered for the want of such a tribunal. 

Believing, as I do, in the principle of evolu- 
14 



210 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

tion, I look for such development of methods as 
will suit the best interests of our cause. It is 
not easy to forecast what will work and what 
will not. Everything must be tried in the cruci- 
ble of experience. Certain it is that no trick of 
organization, no neat adjustment of machinery, 
will make up for lack of unity and devotion to 
the great work of Christ. Men count for more 
than organization. The church needs large- 
minded, constructive men to-day to face the 
problems of the new century; and that she 
needs them is assurance that she will have them. 
This is pre-eminently an institutional era, and I 
believe our beloved church will emerge from it 
with such organization as its ever-enlarging 
mission requires. 

Allan B. Philputt. 



Organization^ and its Hdaptation to the 

present ]Seeds of the Cburcb* 

— 3 Review* 

IT is impossible for me to review, in any proper 
sense, the address we have just heard, since 
it was not placed in my hands in advance of its 
delivery. I can only offer a few remarks, there- 
fore, by way of opening the general discussion 
of the topic. 

The Church of Jesus Christ is a living organ- 
ism, and will therefore create its own form of 
outward organization. We need not anticipate 
its receiving a fixed and rigid form in advance 
of its development as a spiritual force among 
men, but rather that its external organization 
will assume the type most in harmony with the 
divine and world-wide purposes for which it 
exists. The supreme end for which the church 
was created is the salvation of the human race 
through the ministry of the Christ. To bring 
Christ to the world and the world to Christ is 
her only mission. Not her own, but his glory, 
his authority, his righteousness, his infallibility, 
are to be proclaimed and emphasized. Chris- 
tianity, rather than *'churchianity," is what the 
world needs. Dr. Fairbairn, in the preface to 

211 



212 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

his great work, "The Place of Christ in Modern 
Theology," says: "Theology as well as astron- 
omy, may be Ptolemaic; it is so when the inter- 
preter's church, with its creeds and traditions, 
is made the fixed point from which he observes 
and conceives the truth and kingdom of God. 
But theology may also be Copernican ; and it is so 
when the standpoint of the interpreter is, as it 
were, the consciousness of Jesus Christ, and 
this consciousness where it is clearest and most 
defined, in the belief as to God's Fatherhood 
and his own Sonship. Theology, in the former 
case, is geocentric, in the latter, heliocentric; 
and only where the sun is the center can our 
planetary belief s and churches fall into a system 
which is but made the more complete by varying 
degrees of distance and differences of orbit." 
Like the Greeks on that notable feast day, the 
world yet asks of Jesus' disciples, "Sir, we 
would see Jesus;" and the more effectually the 
Church can hide herself behind her divine Lord, 
the more readily will her message be received. 
The power of the gospel is not mechanical, but 
vital, and depends not upon the peculiar polity 
of the church, but upon the potency of the in- 
dwelling Christ. Organization is not primary, 
but secondary, and the legislation of the New 
Testament has to do with the fundamentals of 
the inner life and motive, rather than the acci- 
dentals of the outer form and methods. God 



ORGANIZATION. 213 

gives instinct to the insect, bird and beast, and 
their activities follow the invariable and monot- 
onous round of their natural impulses. But to 
man he has given reason, and his activities are 
to be guided by the ever-changing and advancing 
ideals by which he is led up the heights of pro- 
gress unto glory. The organization of the 
primitive church followed the line of its great- 
est need and fullest opportunity; and the church 
of to-day should not hesitate to modify its 
polity and methods to meet the needs and oppor- 
tunities of this wonderful age. Without enter- 
ing into specific and minute details, I would sug- 
gest three particulars in which the church of 
to-day might well readjust her methods of work, 
Avith whatever changes in her form of organiza- 
tion this might make necessary. 

1. We need a more efficient supervision of 
both churches and ministers. The primitive 
church enjoyed the oversight of the apostles 
and their immediate assistants, and even then 
suffered from disorderly congregations and dis- 
reputable ministers. It is not surprising that we 
are thus troubled, with our total lack of general 
oversight and our false ideas of the absolute in- 
dependency of the individual church and preach- 
er. What we have lost, in numbers and power, 
by this gigantic blunder, eternity alone can re- 
veal. And our million members to-day are 
exerting but a tithe of their proper influence. 



214 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

because they are not united in spirit and effort. 
We have all the members of a body, but they 
are not fully articulated. We are so fearful of 
an ecclesiastical tyranny that we are dangerously 
near to individual anarchy. We exalt the local 
church as if there was no universal church. 
We need to examine again the statements of the 
New Testament concerning the church in its 
larger scope, and to study such passages as Acts 
9: 31 in the Revised Version, "So the church 
throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria 
had peace, being edified ; and, walking in the fear 
of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy 
Spirit, was multiplied." There is a fellowship 
of the gospel that overleaps the bounds of the 
local congregation, and we are all, without re- 
gard to geographical boundaries, "members one 
of another." The welfare of every church is 
the concern of every other church, and the rep- 
utation of any one minister of the gospel affects 
that of all his brethren. Pastorless churches 
and churchless pastors ought to appeal to the 
whole body, and the remedy for the deplorable 
conditions now prevailing in many quarters is 
only to be found in some method of supervision 
which shall bring these two suffering classes to- 
gether. Christ has ordained that men shall be 
saved by "the foolishness of preaching;" but 
"how shall they hear without a preacher?" and 
"how shall he preach without hearers?" Our 



ORGANIZATION. 215 

Methodist brethren have solved the problem by 
their system of itineracy, which, with all its de- 
fects, is so vastly superior to our lack of all 
system, as to put us to shame. Until we adopt 
some kind of intercongregational co-operation, 
for a similar direction of our ministry, we will 
find no relief from the growing embarrassments 
that now beset us. If our churches and preach- 
ers within any given territory would mutually 
agree to be directed in the choice of pastors and 
their support by some central authority, chosen 
by themselves, such as a superintendent or evan- 
gelist, or a committee of brethren, the wisdom 
of such a course would be quickly proven. I 
here and now declare my readiness to enter into 
such an agreement with my brethren of the 
state or district in which I labor, and to submit 
to the authority of their representative, going or 
staying as I may be directed, and as may seem 
to be for the best interests of the cause of our 
Lord and Master. I am aware that this sug- 
gestion will be unwelcome to many good men 
among us, but I am also aware that the most 
violent denunciation of this principle will come 
from those irresponsible and unworthy men 
whose presence in our pulpits is a disgrace to the 
cause of the Savior whom they profess to 
preach. The most ardent advocates of absolute 
independency are likely to be those whose occu- 
pation would begone with the beginning of their 



216 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

responsibility to their brethren. Philip of 
Macedonia offered peace and protection to the 
people of Athens, if they would deliver up their 
orators to him. When Demosthenes heard it 
he said, "That's what the wolf said to the sheep, 
'Give me your watch dogs and I will protect 
you!' '" The wolf is hardly a consistent pleader 
for the freedom of the sheep. 

2. We need a more general and generous fel- 
lowship in Christian service. Christianity is a 
partnership, and each disciple is' called on to in- 
vest all his capital in the common enterprise. 
Some way must be found to enlist all the church 
members in the work of the Lord. Meroz must 
not be recognized as worthy of fellowship unless 
she will come up to the help of the Lord against 
the mighty. The burdens of the local congrega- 
tion must not be borne by the "faithful few." 
The "unfaithful many" must be included in the 
service or excluded from the circle. And the 
general work of our brotherhood must be shared 
by all our churches. It is a shame that the ap- 
peals of our various missionary boards are ignored 
by thousands of our congregations and preachers. 
It ought to be a stigma upon the fair fame of a 
congregation calling itself Christian, that it does 
nothing for the salvation of the world outside of 
the meager effort made in its immediate commu- 
nity ; for that will generally be the more meager 
as it does less for world-wide enterprises. Any 



ORGANIZATION. 217 

modifications in our missionary methods that will 
help to bring about such a reform as I have in- 
dicated, should be hailed as an advance step. 
Personally, I believe that the further unifica- 
tion of our missionary agencies, by combining all 
in one society, with its separate boards or com- 
mittees for such particular oversight as may be 
necessary, would do much to simplify our mis- 
sionary cause in the minds of the brethren, and 
win their confidence and support. 

3. We need such changes in our methods of 
work in the local congregation as will increase 
the volume and improve the quality of the per- 
sonal service of Christians. We must reach the 
people by getting closer to them. We need not 
longer arms but more willing feet. It must not 
be expected of the hard-worked pastor that he 
shall do all the looking after weak and sick 
members and strangers. Christian men and 
women ought to count it a pleasure to share 
in such a work as this. If they are busy helping 
the preacher, they will hardly have time to think 
of criticising him. The working church usually 
keeps its preacher many years. Much of the 
pastor's time ought to be given to directing the 
activities of the members. When one plan of 
work has been used long enough, it ought to be 
abandoned without regret, and a better one 
adopted. Plans are not like wine — you cannot 
always say, "The old is better." The free 



218 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

Body of Christ ought to refuse the yoke of bond- 
age to outgrown customs, and adopt such meth- 
ods of work as wisdom approves. The facts of 
the gospel can never be changed; t'he principles 
of Christianity are eternal; the two solemn and 
significant ordinances of the church embody 
truths that forbid their change from the ex- 
pressive mold in which their divine Author has 
cast them. But in all other things the church is 
at liberty to exercise her judgment, under the 
guidance of that Spirit whose presence and 
power are the peculiar inheritance of the saints. 
In the matter of organization, then, the church 
owes it to herself and to the world to adopt such 
forms and use such methods, from time to time, 
as will best produce the result for which all her 
activities are called forth. And, as the living 
man develops according to the inner life and its 
daily enlarging necessities, so the church of 
Jesus Christ will change its outward appearance 
with its stature, while ever retaining its likeness 
to Him who is the tj^pe of all true holiness; and 
will find its constant task and inspiration in 
striving to attain to "the measure of the stature 
of the fullness of Christ." Just as the soul's 
progress is marked by constant change and up- 
ward advancement, until it at last reaches the 
goal in full and happy union with God in 
heaven. 



ORGANIZATION. 219 

'Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul! 

As the swift seasons roll; 

I/cave thy low-vaulted past. 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea." 

W. F. Richardson. 



X. 

Enrichment of Public Worship 
Among the Disciples. 



EIGHTH SESSION. 

H. O. Breeden, of Des Moines, Iowa, was chairman of this 
session, and the subject for the evening was "Christian Wor- 
ship." After a brief introduction on the subject, Dr. Breeden 
introduced Mrs. Ida Harrison, of Lexington, Ky., who read 
the paper wnich follows on "The Enrichment of Public Wor- 
ship Among the Disciples." The discussion which followed 
the paper was wholly voluntary, but was very suggestive and 
profitable. The general chairman of the Congress then took 
charge of the meeting, and called for very brief speeches from 
members expressing their appreciation of the Congress. Sev- 
eral brief but happy talks were made. "God Be With You 
Till We Meet Again," was sung, a closing prayer was offered, 

and the First Congress of the Disciples of Christ was ended. 

222 



Cbe Snricbment of public dorsbip 
Hmong tbc Disciples^ 

CHILDREN and people in a low stage of men- 
tal and moral development are most easily 
reached through the senses. The eye, in partic- 
ular, is the great thoroughfare from the outer 
world to the inner man, and sight and touch are 
the main avenues by which impressions are con- 
veyed, not only to the mind, but to the spirit. 
We find this principle in the base of the kinder- 
garten idea — the object lesson is the means by 
which truth and knowledge are impressed on 
brain and heart. The same rule seemed to 
be the foundation of the Jewish form of wor- 
ship; the people of the time of Moses, and of 
many generations after Moses, were not able to 
grasp pure and abstract ideas of the Deity, and 
so there was given them a religious ceremonial, 
rich in rite and symbol, by which the great 
truths of their duty to God and man were taught 
to them; it was a religious kindergarten for this 
race in its religious childhood. We know that 
this ritual was admirably adapted to the age and 
genius of the people, and that it finally educated 
them up to the idea of the one true and living 
God, all-powerful, invisible, and so prepared 

223 



224 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

them for the coming of the Redeemer of the 
world. 

But we also know that this formal religion had 
certain dangers connected with it, which resulted 
in a class like the Pharisees, who laid stress on 
externals, rather than on the truths the}' symbol- 
ized. The same tendency in man, which is the 
reason of usefulness of prescribed forms of 
worship, is also a cause of peril — and that is the 
tendency of poor human nature to grasp what is 
visible and tangible rather than what is unseen 
and spiritual. You remember that our Lord 
reproached those formalists of his day for mak- 
ing so much of little matters of observance, and 
said they passed over the essentials of the law^ 
like judgment, mercy and the love of God 
and that at another time, he sternly rebuked 
them for their ostentatious practice of outward 
forms, and making them obligatory on the Jews 
as matters of conscience — or "teaching them as 
doctrines," as he expressed it. 

And there is not only this disposition to em- 
phasize the form of worship rather than the 
spirit of worship, but these forms are not in- 
frequently the cause of fierce controversy. The 
present ritualistic agitation in England, about 
which we read so much, shows how a great 
church can be torn in two mainly over matters of 
ritual. This agitation, as far as I can gather, 
seems to be a continuation of the Oxford, or 



ENRICHMENT OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 225 

Tractarian movement early in the century, when 
mobs gathered and riots ensued, and legal con- 
tests arose over the use of certain vestments, of 
lights, of the eastward position of the clergy, of 
the placing of the altar, the burning question of 
the ornaments, rubric, and numerous other mat- 
ters of form. The excitement to-day is bearing 
fruits in such unseemly spectacles as the vicar of 
one church charging at the head of some of his 
flock against an opposing church during hours of 
worship, in immense mass meetings, where, we 
are told, five thousand were turned away from 
the doors, in monster petitions to queen and 
parliament, and in many other unlovely and un- 
christian proceedings. Of course we under- 
stand that it is the dread of Romish doctrines 
behind these various rites that is causing much 
of the agitation, but the fact remains that many 
of the Ritualistic clergymen, both in the present 
and in the Tractarian movement, claim loyalty to 
the English church, and merely insist on their 
right to use decorous and beautiful forms, and 
their use of them is creating a disturbance that 
may result in a religious revolution. 

But because ritualism in worship has been a 
fertile cause of danger, not only along the lines 
indicated, but in many other ways, yet that is 
not a legitimate argument against the wise use 
of simple and flexible forms. Some of the 

greatest material blessings we have are among 
15 



226 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

the most dangerous and destructive forces in 
nature, such as fire and electricity. We must be 
certain we know enough about them to use them 
aright, and must use proper precautions against 
their destructive tendencies, and then these de- 
stroyers become blessings. And so, I think we 
need not fear to use such helpful forms in wor- 
ship as silent prayer on entering the church, re- 
peating the Lord's Prayer in concert, the audible 
amen at the end of prayer, and responsive read- 
ings of selected passages from the Bible. The 
rebuke of our Lord to the ritualists of his day 
was that "they taught as doctrine the com- 
mandments of men;" whenever we make inflexi- 
ble and unchangeable rules for worship, and 
impose them as doctrines on the church, then 
we are in danger of bringing the sting of that 
stern reprimand on ourselves ; but I cannot see 
how the use of such simple forms as I have in- 
dicated, when they are matters of choice by the 
congregations, and not imposed by any authority, 
would compromise any principle or endanger the 
faith of the weakest. The homely command of 
the apostle to the Corinthian Church, to conduct 
their worship with "decency and order," seems 
to involve pre-arrangement and the practice of 
some forms. 

I suppose there is no one before me to-night 
who is not thankful that our churches have not 
inherited that apple of discord, a historic liturgy. 



ENRICHMENT OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 227 

The truth has made us free. With a great price 
our fathers in the faith purchased it for us, and 
we should rejoice in it, as we do in the personal 
freedom won for us by our forefathers in the 
Revolution. Yet, have we not sometimes made 
that very freedom an occasion of stumbling? 
It is often noted in reforms, that the reformer 
who goes too far sometimes creates a spirit of 
revolt against the truths he proclaims; the sense 
of justice is violated by intemperance of word 
and deed, and the unthinking often fall back 
into the pit from whence they were digged. The 
pendulum that swings too far east will go back 
a corresponding distance west. I sometimes 
fear that we have gone a trifle too far in our 
opposition to prescribed forms of worship, and 
so have produced in some a craving for the rest- 
fulness and outward reverence of ritualism. It 
may be I have been more on the alert since I 
was asked to write this paper, but a number of 
instances have come to my notice of people who 
complain of a lack of quietude and devotion in 
our churches; in a few instances I have known 
of Disciples of Christ who attend other 
churches because the atmosphere in them is more 
helpful to worship. It is true, these are gener- 
ally young members and weak members, but we 
do not wish to be a cause of offense to the poor- 
est saint. I don't believe we lay quite as much 
stress on the "meeting-house" idea now as we 



228 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

did some 3'ears ago, aud I think it is a happy 
decline. We have come to the conclusion that 
the people of our brotherhood are firral}' in- 
trenched in the idea that the body of believers 
is the church, and not the house where they 
meet, and that we can build beautiful and com- 
fortable houses for worship without leading any 
one into the error of thinking that there is any 
essential sanctity in places. I trust we shall 
soon go a step farther, and lay more emphasis 
on devout demeanor when we meet in the house 
of God for public worship. 

A subject like "The Enrichment of our Pub- 
lic Worship, " necessarily implies the need of 
such enrichment. I have talked with several 
representatives of the pulpit in my part of the 
world, and they fortified me in the belief that 
there is such a need. One of the oldest preach- 
ers in Lexington, the honored president of our 
Foreign Missionary Society, wrote me these em- 
phatic words: "It is a notorious fact that our 
congregations in this land are not as reverential 
and devotional in the house of God as they 
should be; many do not understand the matter, 
and need to have their attention called to it." I 
shall take these words of one of our wise lead- 
ers as my text, and shall diffidently offer some 
suggestions looking to a greater spirit of rever- 
ence in our worship. 

I would sav that one of our first needs on that 



ENRICHMENT OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 229 

line is to create an atmosphere of stillness and 
silence in the house of God. "The Lord is in 
his holy temple — let all the earth keep silence." 
"Where two or three are gathered together in 
my name, there am I in the midst of them." 
Surely when we enter the place where prayer and 
praise are wont to be made, where we invoke the 
name of the Most High and claim the promise 
of his presence, the sacred proprieties of the 
place require a stillness of body, a hush of 
speech that we rarely see in one of our congre- 
gations. Instead of that, is it not the rule, 
rather than the exception, at the beginning of 
worship to hear a rustling of many garments, a 
whispering of many voices? How hard to quiet 
the spirit to the right frame for worship in such 
an unquiet atmosphere ! Our spirits are so de- 
pendent on our bodies, and our bodies, in this 
high-strung generation, are such electric, ner- 
vous machines, so responsive to surrounding in- 
fluences, that thoughts will wander and be dis- 
tracted, and what should be a heavenly hour is 
wasted. In the text, "The spirit indeed is will- 
ing, but the flesh is weak," have we not more 
than an intimation that the spirit is largely de- 
pendent for its helps or its hindrances upon the 
body in which we dwell? 

I believe one of the ways of helping to attain 
to a devotional quietude, is the practice of silent 
prayer on first entering the church. It enables 



230 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

the worshiper to still his own heart by asking 
God's help; it also protects him from thought- 
less comments and greeting of those sitting near. 
You may say, *' Why bring this up at this meet- 
ing? Let those who like offer silent prayer, and 
those who dislike such a form refrain from it." 
The trouble is, if part of a congregation prac- 
tice it, and part do not, those* who do, make 
themselves remarked and conspicuous by it, and 
so shrink from what would be a helpful com- 
munion. In our church in Lexington, the 
women who attend the woman's prayer-meet- 
ing resolved that they would each offer silent 
prayer at the beginning of the service. We did 
so for a while, but we were only about thirty out 
of a congregation of one thousand, and we soon 
became so conscious of comment and criticism 
that we lost the benefit of it, and gradually had 
to abandon it. It would have to be of general 
observance before it would be a helpful service 
to the worshiper, and have a quieting eifect on 
the congregation. 

Our good minister has lately instructed his 
ushers to keep late-comers in the rear of the 
church, and not seat them during the reading of 
the Scripture lesson. The distractions to mind 
from people coming in during the invocation, or 
prayer, or Bible-reading, are certainly hindrances 
to a worshipful frame of mind. It is getting to 
be considered bad form to enter a concert-room 



ENRICHMENT OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 231 

during the progress of a musical number. 
Would it be too much to hope for such an ideal 
in church decorum, that late comers would 
always wait in the rear until prayer or Bible 
reading was finished? 

St. Paul speaks of saying Amen in the church 
at the giving of thanks. Surely we need not 
fear to practice it then ; it gives the congrega- 
tion a participation in the prayers that seems 
most fitting. And why should we not at times 
participate with the minister in prayer, by re- 
peating the Lord's Prayer in concert? When 
our Master gave it he evidently meant it for the 
use of a number together, for he uses the plural 
throughout, " When ye pray, say, Our Father, lead 
us not into temptation,'' whereas when directions 
were given for private prayer, it is, " Wlien thou 
prayest, enter into thy closet,'' and so on. Certain- 
ly it would enrich our prayer service to have the 
whole body of worshipers repeat together often 
this most divine and perfect form of prayer. 

And I can see no rational objection to the peo- 
ple sharing in the Bible-reading with the minis- 
ter. The responsive reading of appropriate pas- 
sages from the Word of God is certainly a 
profitable and beautiful form of worship; we 
use it in our Sunday-school, and the teachers and 
scholars join in it heartily, and make it a help- 
ful part of our service. The only machinery 
needed are Bibles in the pews as well as hymn 



232 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

books, and a leader to face the congregation. 
Surely an ideal in worship is to have the wor- 
shipers participate with the minister in it, and 
if we use these simple and becoming forms of 
silent prayer, the audible amen, the Lord's 
Prayer in concert and responsive readings from 
the Bible, we shall have taken along step toward 
that much-desired end. We are often accused 
of making much of the sermon and little of the 
worship in our church service. Would it not be 
well to remove the cause of that criticism by 
more careful attention to the details of worship 
(whether along lines indicated in this paper, or 
in ways suggested by those who shall follow me) 
and so raise the worship to as high a plane of 
dignity as the sermon? 

A great preacher says, "In hymns and psalms 
we have a universal ritual; it is the theology of 
the heart that unites men. The art of singing 
together is one that is forever weaving invisible 
threads about us." And the same high author- 
ity testifies to the value of good hymns in gen- 
eral, and of one hymn in particular, by saying, 
"I would rather have written 'Jesus, Lover of 
My Soul,' than to have the fame of all the 
kings that ever sat on earth. That hymn will go 
on singing until the last trump brings forth the 
angel band, and then I think it will mount up on 
some lip to the very presence of God." 

No one will question that music is one of the 



ENRICHMENT OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 233 

important parts of worship. It is that part in 
which all join and that part that most perfectly 
voices the element of praise. I count that its 
quieting, uplifting effect on the worshiper is one 
of its primary functions. No one who has been 
so fortunate as to see an audience of thousands 
under the spell of the sublimest of oratorios, 
The Messiah, who has seen them rise as one 
man and join in the final chorus, can fail to bear 
witness to the elevating power of music, and 
can doubt but that it is one of the great means 
by which the soul soars upward to the feet of the 
Great Father. We have a familiar illustration 
of the power of music in the service for the 
dead. How often have we listened dry-eyed to 
prayer and Holy Writ, but when the sweet and 
solemn strains of the hymn floated out, tears 
have streamed down every face. It has a lan- 
guage that speaks more eloquently than the 
tongue of any man. Haydn, when an old man, 
made his first journey to England. Mozart ex- 
pressed anxiety to him lest his ignorance of the 
English language should mar the pleasure of his 
visit. *'My language," said the old musician, "is 
understood all the world over." Music is the 
universal speech which appeals to the universal 
heart of man ; it is the utterance of what is un- 
utterable in words — the voice of the soul's life. 
Creation began with music, when the morning 
stars sang together; it greeted the birth of 



234 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

Christ when the angelic hosts sang to the listen- 
ing shepherds. Our lives begin with the cradle 
song, they close with the funeral anthem. We 
know not whether there will be speech after the 
manner of earthly speech in heaven, but we do 
know that song set to strains from heavenly 
harps will be there, and that is a speech we can 
all understand. 

If music have this power over body and spirit, 
how important that we should use it to its best 
and fullest in our church service. I take it for 
granted that we are all agreed that the most per- 
fect song service is that in which the whole 
church can join, so I shall not enlarge on 'con- 
gregational singing. Neither shall I emphasize 
the use of the organ in worship, because, happi- 
ly, the dispute over its use is passing away, and 
it is only at rare intervals that we now hear 
echoes of what was once a bitter controversy. 
It has been practically demonstrated that the 
sound of the organ in our churches was not the 
death knell of congregational singing, as some 
of its opponents darkly predicted. In point of 
fact, in a town I know, where one of the large 
churches has an organ and one has not, the 
church without the organ has more of what we 
call special choir singing than the church with 
the organ. If ever an instrument was created 
for a special purpose, the organ seems to have 
been especially designed for religious music. To 



ENRICHMENT OF PUBLIC WORSPIP. 235 

fail to use an instrument so peculiarly fitted for 
divine worship, whether alone, in voluntary or 
prelude, or as the background and harmonious 
complement of the human voice in song, would 
seem to be a willful neglect of opportunity. 

In addition to the organ, played by one not 
only a skillful musician but a sincere Christian, 
I think music in our churches needs two things: 

1. A higher poetic standard for the hymns 
we use. 

2. A higher musical standard for the tunes 
to which they are set. For acceptable song be- 
fore the Lord, we should indeed crave "perfect 
music set to noble words." 

In the reformation wrought by our church 
fathers, song and hymn did not play the impor- 
tant part they did with Luther in the sixteenth 
century and with the Wesleys in the eighteenth. 
The sermon and the debate were the means by 
which the evils of sectarianism were attacked, 
and the desirableness of Christian union was ex- 
tolled. Luther's psalms and hymns gave wings 
to his teaching; they became so popular they 
even found their way into the Catholic Church, 
so that a Romanist said in alarm, "The whole 
people is singing itself into the Lutheran doc- 
trine." Luther's great hymn, "A Mighty Strong- 
hold is Our God," became the Marseillaise of 
the Reformation. Charles Wesley sang the doc- 
trines of Methodism into the hearts of believers. 



236 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

His *'Jesus, Lover of My Soul," and *'Love 
Divine, All Love Excelling," did as much to 
reach the heart of his day as the eloquence of 
Whitfield or the administrative genius of his 
brother John. 

The fact that the sermon rather than the 
hymn played the leading part in our reformation, 
may account for the little stress we have laid on 
hymns as a means of grace. They furnish the 
best devotional reading that we have; next to 
the Word of God, they give comfort to the sor- 
rowing and guidance to the perplexed. It is 
important that we have the best hymns in our 
collections on that account, as well as on ac- 
count of the leading part they bear in our wor- 
ship. I have never seen a collection of hymns 
for the use of our churches that has satisfied me. 
Those that I have seen fail to give us some of 
the lyrics that voice the perfect flower of spirit- 
ual aspiration. I fail to find those two old 
hymns that have come down to us from the sixth 
and eighth centuries, and that possess poetry as 
well as piety, — **Art Thou Weary, Art Thou Lan- 
guid?" and "0, Sacred Head, Once Wounded." 
I have never seen in our collections that beauti- 
ful hymn of Charles Wesley, "Come, O Thou 
Traveler Unknown." 

This century has been peculiarly rich in hymn 
writers, but we lack a number of their jewels of 
sacred song in our collections, such as Prof. 



ENRICHMENT OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 237 

Blackie's "Angels Holy, High and Lowly;" Miss 
Dowdney's funeral hymn, "Sleep On, Beloved, 
Sleep, and Take Thy Rest;" Miss Procter's "I 
Do Not Ask, O Lord, That Life May Be a Pleas- 
ant Eoad;" Mrs. Alexander's "There is a Green 
Hill Far Away," and others by Mrs. Browning, 
Adelaide Procter, Christina Rosetti, and writers 
on Avhom I have not space to dwell. 

But I do find in use among us, as well as 
among other religious bodies, hymns that seem 
utterly unworthy of a place in public worship. 
The growing use of congregational singing, and 
the ever larger part taken in worship by our 
young people and children, have made the hymn 
with the refrain very popular. That it is a noble 
form no one can doubt who has heard Baring- 
Gould's "Onward, Christian Soldier," or Miss 
Havergal's "I Gave My Life for Thee," or many 
of Bliss' and Sankey's songs. But that it has 
been put to base uses no one can fail to note 
who listens to much of the degenerate jingle 
that masquerades under the name of Gospel 
Songs. How many of them are merely taking a 
popular phrase and twisting it into mechanical 
rhymes, without meaning or devotion! Did you 
ever think how often the good phrases, "Over 
the River," and "Whiter than Snow," and "The 
Sweet By-and-By," have been reproduced, until 
they were purely perfunctory and threadbare? 
I counted eight songs in one collection that w^ere 



238 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

built up on "Whiter than Snow," and seven that 
had as their base "Some Day," or "Some Sweet 
Day," or "Some Happy Day." There is a re- 
frain to a gospel song we often sing that always 
brings to my mind the Psalmist's prayer, "Lord, 
keep thy servant from presumptuous sins;" it 
tells of when the saved of earth shall gather over 
on the other shore, and announces in confident 
and oft-repeated chorus, "When the Roll is 
Called Up Yonder, I'll Be There." To say the 
least, it seems premature for sinning, stumbling 
creatures to make public proclamation of that 
fact. There is one song we used to sing at every 
revival in our part of the country, but is happily 
not in our later collections; it is the one where 
the newly converted believer is represented as 
saying : 

"My old companions, fare you well, 
I will not go with you to hell." 

I do not believe it is possible to wed doggerel to 
noble music. If the words be only jingle, the 
music will be only jingle. Musical critics say 
that one reason Italian opera never attained to 
the dignity and meaning of that of Wagner and 
other German composers was because their text 
was lacking in intellectual quality and nobility of 
theme. The eagerness with which great musi- 
cians of our day have used the Faust theme — 
that noble theme of the struggle, both in the 



ENRICHMENT OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 239 

visible and invisible worlds, between the powers 
of good and evil for mastery of the human soul — 
shows the value they set on a noble text. 

Much of the music set to our popular hymns 
is trash of the purest kind. There is a wealth 
of divine music ready for our use, written by the 
great masters who looked on their art as a sacred 
trust, given to them from above. Handel said 
when he wrote the Hallelujah Chorus, *'I did see 
heaven open before me;" Haydn wrote at the 
beginning of all his compositions, *'To the glory 
of God," and put at the close, *'Praise the 
Lord;" and Mozart wrote, "I have God always 
before my eyes." There is plenty of music by 
them and by their peers fitted for congrega- 
tional singing, so that the unlearned in music, 
though guiltless of knowledge of note or bar, 
can join therein; and there is being written, all 
the time, music that is worthy of being wedded 
to the sweetest and loftiest of our spiritual 
songs. 

I believe that when we have set a higher stand- 
ard for our song service, both in words , and 
music, we shall have taken a long step toward 
enriching our public worship. 

I have said before that we are often charged 
with making too much of the sermon and too 
little of the worship in our service; but there 
is one ordinance that Disciples observe every 
Sunday that is the very acme — the climax of 



240 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

worship — the Holy Communion. As far as I 
know, we are the only people who celebrate 
the Lord's Supper every Lord's day — the only 
people who meet "for the breaking of bread on 
the first day of every week." 

We are often reminded that the frequent ob- 
servance of this memorial endangers its solem- 
nity and efficacy by making it common. We 
should be constantly on the watch that this 
observance, which is both a memorial of the dead 
Christ and a communion with the living Christ, 
should never be formal and perfunctory — but 
should be a blessed hour spent on the heights of 
communion, of grateful meditation on the love 
which laid down a life for us, and in examina- 
tion of our hearts, with a penitent purpose to 
put away the sins that separate us from him. I 
wish some of the brethren present, who are bet- 
ter versed in our church history than I am, 
would give the reasons for so often placing the 
conduct of this service in the hands of the elders, 
rather than with the minister of the church. 
Is it not a fact that a change from the one who 
has presided in all the previous services to an- 
other person, is apt to distract the minds of the 
congregation at a moment when the thoughts 
should be turned within in examination of our 
own hearts, and upward to Him who alone can 
make them clean? In most instances the new 
leader feels that he must make some introduc- 



ENRICHMENT OE PUBLIC WORSHIP. 241 

tory remarks — often in the shape of a kind of 
review of the sermon just closed. Very often 
the best of elders has no gift for public speech, 
and he suffers and his hearers suffer while he 
struggles through what has been imposed on him 
as a duty. Sometimes a good elder, faithful in 
comforting the sick and ministering to the 
needy, is lacking in a sense of the eternal fit- 
ness of things. Some of you know of a dis- 
tressing occasion, when a beautiful new church 
was filled with a great crowd, and the good old 
elder, whose turn it was to officiate at the Lord's 
Supper, as soon as he took his place at the table, 
burst out in one of the loudest and most discord- 
ant voices ever heard into *'Alas, and Did My 
Savior Bleed," and sang it through, while the 
congregation sat in helpless misery through it 
all! 

It is given to very few to say the solemn and 
uplifting word at this sacred time. The utter- 
ance of prayer, the voice of song, the words of 
Holy Writ, are the only words we want; all 
other speech is apt to jar then. I have often 
wished that some of our leading brethren would 
arrange selected passages from the Bible for use 
at our communion service — passages that could 
be either used responsively by minister and con- 
gregation, or could be read by the minister 

alone — and that would help us to reach that 
16 



242 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

frame of mind so beautifully expressed by Bonar 
in his Communion Hymn: 

"Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face. 

Here would I touch and handle things unseen; 
Here grasp with firmer hand the eternal grace. 
And all my weariness upon thee lean." 

While I was writing this paper, I saw com- 
ments in two of our secular papers on the dis- 
regard of the benediction in many of our 
churches. The writers deplored the fact that 
what should be most beautiful and solemn was 
spoiled by the congregation struggling into over- 
coats and overshoes, and clutching for hats and 
umbrellas. I know you will grant that this was 
a just criticism, and that the benediction, instead 
of being the close and climax of a sacred ser- 
vice, is too often the preparation for an unseem- 
ly rush to get out of the church. But while the 
congregation seem to be the erring ones, yet, 
with all due respect for this gathering, I believe 
the minister is often at fault, too. Items of 
business, forgotten announcements, are often 
sandwiched in between the doxology and bene- 
diction, and the spirit uplifted by communion 
and song is abruptly jerked back to practical 
details, and the closing blessing loses its effect. 
The communion, the parting praise song, tlio 
benediction, should each be a successive step on 
the ladder of praise; to insert anything irrele- 
vant is to break what should be a sacred ascending 



ENRICHMENT OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 243 

series, and to rob the devout worshiper of the 
parting promise of the presence of God, of 
peace, of love, of grace — a humble foretaste of 
the final blessing, "Well done, good and faith- 
ful servant." 

For any minister to make the **benediction 
that follows after prayer" degenerate into the 
mere formality of repeating a changeless form, 
is to cheat his people out of a goodly heritage. 
There is a wealth of benedictory forms in the 
sacred writings which have power indeed "to 
quiet the restless pulse of care." I counted 
twenty-five beautiful benedictions found in the 
Epistles alone, to say nothing of those in the 
Old Testament, especially that peerless one 
given by the Lord himself for blessing the chil- 
dren of Israel: 

"The Lord bless thee and keep thee; 
The Lord make his face to shine, and be gracious unto thee: 
The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee 
peace. 

Our Lord, wearied with his journey, resting 
alone by a well-side at noon, told a nameless, 
sinning woman the greatest of all secrets about 
acceptable worship. The essential of worship, 
he said, was not the place, it was not the gor- 
geous temple ritual, it Avas the spirit of the wor- 
shiper. "The true worshiper must worship the 
Father in spirit and in truth." Here we have the 
greatest need for enriching our worship — the 



244 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

humble, penitent, believing heart, hungering 
and thirsting for righteousness, answering the 
divine *'Come unto me" of Him who is both the 
bread of life and the water of life. A clear call 
to this age, as it is to all ages, is to lift our ideals 
of personal piety ever higher. The noble watch- 
word of this generation is service; nearly every 
earnest member of our church is asking, '*Lord, 
what wilt thou have me to c?o.^" The pent-up 
energies of an inert past are finding avenues for 
usefulness on every side ; doors of opportunity 
are opening everywhere, not only to the strong 
man trained for work, but to the women who 
are already becoming a great host, to the young 
people, even to the little children. How im- 
portant that now of all times, our standards of 
holy living and holy dying should be of the 
highest. Paul exhorted his son in the faith to 
be ''sanctified, meet for the Master's use, pre- 
pared for every good work." The workman, in 
order to do good work, must have tools bright 
and sharp. We expect our Master to use us; 
how should we strive to be "meet for his use?" 
Of what exalted piet}^ and purity should we be, 
of what lowly childlikeness, of what strong and 
steadfast spirits, what patience, what gentleness! 
I do not believe our Master can any more use us 
for good works unless we are "meet for his use," 
than he could do mighty works in the city where 
there was unbelief. The high tide of spiritual 



ENRICHMENT OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 245 

growth must throb through all our work and our 
worship, or both will be cold and fruitless. 

It has struck me that our people are great- 
ly lacking in devotional literature. I do not 
think we want to foster the introspective, ana- 
lytical spirit of by-gone days, when the Chris- 
tian spent the best part of his time contemplat- 
ing his own vices and virtues and speculating on 
them, but we want more books that strike true 
notes of spiritual aspiration, where a busy 
worker can find a chord that shall make his day 
harmonious, where the poor soul, blinded and 
bewildered with sorrow or pain, can find help, 
where the weak can find strength. These things 
are all in God's Word, but many are busy, or 
blind, or ignorant, and do not, or will not, seek 
for themselves. Some of us were preparing 
cases of books for a traveling library in the 
mountains of Kentucky some time ago, and on 
inquiry as to the kind of books wanted, found 
there was a great demand for devotional books, 
which was a surprise, coming from that special 
field. There is a great demand everywhere for 
books that tell simply and sincerely how to be 
good. 

That the pulpit should often exhort to that 
"holiness without which no man can see God," 
goes without saying. In the church where they 
hope to enrich the worship, this theme must 
often be repeated. And there should be no com- 



246 OUR FIRST CONGRESS. 

promise of ideals; the only goal to which the 
Christian is pointed should be the prize of the 
high calling of God in Christ Jesus. The only 
pattern held before him must be that heavenly 
and irresistible one which draws all men to it 
when lifted up. In order to permanently enrich 
our worship, all the worshipers must belong to 
that elect class whose uplifted eyes are looking 
to Jesus, whose yearning hearts are trying to be 
like him, and whose firm faith comforts them, 
through all their struggles and failures, that 
they shall be like him in that blest day "when 
they shall see him as he is." 

Ida Withers Harrison. 



FINIS. 



JUL 36 till 



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